Trump moves fast to enact his agenda
President Trump is moving at head-spinning speed to enact his agenda.
Photo credit: Whitehouse.gov
Blessings on you and your family from all the Huckabee team! Today’s newsletter is below.
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Daily Bible Verse
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8 KJV
Today’s Video:
From “Huckabee Today” on TBN, Gov. Huckabee talks with Republican strategist Colin Reed about how Trump is disrupting the status quo in Washington.
https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=F90009B6-143F-4522-941F-A105800100DD
Trump moves fast to enact his agenda
President Trump is moving at head-spinning speed to enact his agenda and, thanks to the lesson he learned in his first term, he's clearing out any entrenched bureaucrats who might try to stonewall him. Here’s a round-up of what’s happened just since yesterday. Buckle up!
For the first time in four years, America has a real “border czar,” Tom Homan, and he told Fox News on Tuesday that ICE deportation raids had already begun.
In a possibly related story, on Sunday, a Border Patrol agent was shot and killed during a traffic stop 20 miles south of the Canadian border in Vermont. A suspect was also killed and another suspect was wounded. So far, no information about the suspect’s identity or background has been released. But as one commenter on X observed, they “just made these deportations personal” for every ICE and Border Patrol agent in America.
The federal Office of Personnel Management ordered heads of all agencies and departments to close down their DEI offices by end of day today, and put all the employees in them on paid leave (i.e., don’t shift them to the HR departments where they can continue their poisonous work under new titles.)
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote a memo to the Justice Department instructing them that it’s their responsibility to ensure that federal laws are upheld. That means federal prosecutors should prepare to investigate any state or local officials who obstruct efforts to enforce federal immigration laws.
Trump ordered all federal workers who have been working from home to return to the office full time. Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “No more showing up to work one day a month. If you’re going to collect a paycheck from the government, you actually have to show up to work!”
There might be a case to be made that some work can be better done at home without the expense, pollution and wasted time of commuting. Unfortunately, there are always those bad apples who ruin it for everyone, like the Interior Department employees who allegedly bilked the taxpayers out of over $400,000 in overpayments by claiming to be working in the DC area when they were actually all over the US. See, as with toddlers, this is why they have to be where you can keep an eye on them constantly!
Immediately after being unanimously confirmed as Secretary of State, Marco Rubio ordered the State Department to cease refugee resettlement operations and imposed enhanced vetting of visa applications from “dangerous regions.” He also ordered all COVID-era “work from home” policies ended and told all employees to get back into the office. News bulletin to the government: the pandemic is over.
Since it’s unfortunately very difficult to fire them, multiple senior officials at the DOJ are being “reassigned.” If they’re the ones who pushed partisan lawfare for the past four years, then let’s hope they’re reassigned to polar bear wrangling duty in Alaska.
Trump announced that in retaliation for China allowing Chinese-made fentanyl to continue to pour into Mexico and Canada, and then into the US, he’s putting a 10% tariff on Chinese goods effective February 1st.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-plans-10-tariffs-chinese-imports-feb-1
In summation, as pundit Don Surber put it, “This is the Trump we wanted. He’s finally saying, ‘You’re fired!’”
Did you hear about the National Prayer Service?
Tuesday Morning, President Trump, Vice President Vance and their families attended the National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. It’s a multi-faith event with contributions from Christian, Jewish, Islamic and other religious leaders. But the feeling of multicultural respect was unfortunately derailed when the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, decided to deliver a sermon that was less a lesson from Scripture than a woke political speech about illegal immigrants and LGBTQ rights, obviously aimed directly at Trump.
We were going to quote from it and talk about why it was offensive, inappropriate, factually and Biblically incorrect, and overlooked a number of serious issues with leftist dogma that her own side is ignoring, but Lincoln Brown at PJ Media saved us the trouble by writing an excellent “open letter” to her. Since he describes himself as both a former leftist and a former Episcopalian of 40 years’ standing (we suspect the “formers” in both cases are related), we will defer to him. This is a MUST-READ, and it also includes video of the full “sermon” if you’re inclined to torture yourself.
https://pjmedia.com/lincolnbrown/2025/01/21/trump-vance-attend-the-national-prayer-service-n4936211
To his credit, Trump didn’t storm out of the service, but just sat and took the leftist lecture disguised as a sermon with dignity. However, he is still Donald Trump, so he later took to Truth Social and told the world exactly what he thought about it. If this were a Yelp review, it would put her church out of business:
Trump keeps a promise
President Trump kept another campaign promise by pardoning Ross Ulbricht, nicknamed the Dread Pirate Roberts, who was sentenced to two sentences of life without parole in 2011 for founding Silk Road. That was the original dark web marketplace. While some argue that Trump shouldn’t have pardoned him, others say his case was a blueprint for the J6 trials, with wild overcharging, biased judges and extreme punishment for things he might theoretically do rather than what he actually did. There’s also the argument that people actually murder other people and get far less prison time than he did.
Streiff at Redstate.com has a good explanation of the case and the pardon, with a handy link to learn more about who Ulbricht is.
Hey, Californians:
Good job picking a new Senator. He’s already showing the kind of judgement that will make you proud – if you’re a Berkeley professor.
51st State Update
After Donald Trump’s critics painted him as unhinged for talking about buying Greenland from Denmark and making it a state, the Prime Minister of Greenland said his people do not want to become Americans (FYI: He might want to poll them on that.) But he said they also do not want to be Danes, and they do want “stronger cooperation with America.”
So maybe this will end up with Greenland not being a state, but with America having a stronger relationship with Greenland, which would enable us to have more of a military presence there to block Russia and China from taking over northern trade routes.
In other words, Trump asked for more than he really wanted so he could “settle” for what he actually wanted. It’s called “The Art of the Deal.” His critics didn’t recognize this tactic because they’ve never seen it from our government negotiators before. The time-honored DC method of negotiating with other nations is to walk in and say, “Do whatever you want to us!”
A guilty plea
A 23-year-old male (we won’t say “man” since that implies maturity) pleaded guilty to vandalizing two pro-life pregnancy centers in Denton, Texas. He said he was all hopped up over Roe v. Wade being overturned. For once, someone faced federal charges under the FACE Act for assaulting a pro-life pregnancy center rather than simply praying outside an abortion clinic.
To give you an idea of the level of mental wattage we’re dealing with here, one of the things he spray-painted on the centers was “FORCED BIRTH IS MURDER.” We’ll leave you to try to figure out what in the world that could possibly mean.
Cecile Richards passes
Cecile Richards, daughter of the last Texas Gov. Ann Richards and former Planned Parenthood president who recently received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden, has died at 67 of brain cancer.
After stepping down from PP in 2018, she formed an organization to radicalize women voters against Trump and Republicans and in favor of abortion.
Unlike many on the left, we do not celebrate the deaths of political opponents. We hope that before she passed, she recognized how sacred life is and repented. Brain cancer is a terrible disease, and our prayers and sympathies go out to her family members.
For Future Reference:
Even the Anti-Defamation League agrees, simply raising your arm while making a speech does NOT make you a Nazi, no matter what hysterical leftists say.
Line of the Day!
Comedian Jimmy Faila said that even Trump’s detractors are glad he’s back because he was the best jobs President ever: “He’s even got the Village People working again!”
Trump says, “YOU’RE FIRED!” while “DC Gulag” drags its feet releasing J6 prisoners
The new Trump 47 administration, just into its third day, has been working literally around the clock to clear out the dead wood and the deep state, including some very specific purges you’ll be glad to hear about today.
Among the 1,000 or so who have already been let go, it’s particularly gratifying to know that retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who just became the beneficiary of a dodgy blanket pardon from outgoing Pardoner-in-Chief Joe Biden, has been fired. This man once called President Trump a “wannabe dictator,” so this case is about as clear-cut as it gets. It’s not a relationship that can be or deserves to be saved, as Trump once suggested that Milley deserved execution for holding back-channel conversations with the CCP while he was President. Some of our nation’s Founders would likely agree with that comment if they were around today.
And you have to love this: Less than three hours after Trump was inaugurated, Gen. Milley’s portrait was gone from the Pentagon. One can imagine the scene, which likely involved lots of cheering (we don’t know, but we like to think there was).
Gen. Milley was reportedly among the very first to be kicked to the curb, after serving most recently as a member of Biden’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council. Surely Trump won’t need Milley, of all people, for advice concerning the national infrastructure, considering the billions wasted on infrastructure that hasn’t even been built.
Around midnight --- after what for most mere humans would have been an exhausting day and night of inaugural activities --- President Trump posted on Truth Social what he called “an Official Notice of Dismissal” to four Biden employees and warned that this was just the beginning.
“Our first day in the White House is not over yet!” Trump said in his post. “My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not in line with our vision to Make America Great Again.
“Let this serve as Official Notice of Dismissal for these 4 individuals, with many more, comings soon…”
The President then went on to name Gen. Milley; Jose Andres from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition (who once backed out of a plan to open a restaurant in Trump’s DC hotel after what he claimed was Trump calling Mexicans criminals and racists); former diplomat Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars; and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council.
“YOU’RE FIRED!” Trump said.
Trump had already posted on Truth Social a “taboo list” of people whose associates shouldn’t be hired for his administration. This unsurprising list includes Liz and Dick Cheney, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, GOP megadonor Charles Koch, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, Gen. James Mattis and former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Remember him? Here’s just a sample...
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/18/mark-esper-secrets-trump-classified-00102541
It’s easy to understand that after what was done to Trump last time by the entrenched bureaucracy, he has zero tolerance for those who might want to pose obstacles. As the NEW YORK POST pointed out, he told Joe Rogan during their interview last year that “The biggest mistake I made” was hiring “bad people, disloyal people.” As an outsider in DC, he could never have anticipated the depth of the swamp he was wading into. So he’s obviously being very careful now.
Accordingly, no allies of Republicans who have spoken out against Trump will even be considered as new hires. “In order to save time, money and effort,” Trump posted, “it would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who have worked with, or are endorsed by, [the above]...or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly known as TDS.”
Another way Trump is trying to pare down the DC workforce is to reinstate the in-office five-day work week. Those who aren’t sufficiently dedicated to his administration can get out.
The Presidential Personnel Office, headed by longtime Trump associate Sergio Gor, is extremely busy right now, expected to hire about 4,000 people for the new administration. They do seem to be on the right track with this, and had already hired more than 1,300 staffers by the end of Day 1, a record for presidential new-hires.
This NEW YORK POST write-up also includes a summary of the executive orders Trump signed on Day 1. As you read this, you might want to get someone to pinch you, just to show you’re not dreaming...
https://nypost.com/2025/01/21/us-news/trump-to-remove-over-1000-biden-appointees-youre-fired
In related news, President Trump rescinded John Bolton’s security clearance on Monday, and the next day, he took away Bolton’s Secret Service protective detail. (Note: we’d forgotten Bolton had his own Secret Service detail. But President Biden gave him one after our intel got word of Tehran’s plan to kill him.)
“We’re not gonna have security on people for the rest of their lives,” Trump told White House reporters. “Why should we?”
He called Bolton a “warmonger” and said “I thought he was a very dumb person, but I used him well.”
There’s much more to be said about Trump’s new hires in the coming days, but for now, let’s move to what’s happening with the January 6 prisoners. Upon his swearing-in, Trump moved swiftly to pardon or commute the sentences of almost all of them, and many relatives and other loved ones were there at the “DC Gulag” and other detention facilities to take them home, but it didn’t happen that way.
Trump’s executive order had commuted the sentences of about a dozen individuals and pardoned “all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” It ordered that they be released IMMEDIATELY. But as Catherine Salgado reports for PJ MEDIA, “multiple prisons and halfway houses” are resisting the order, refusing to release the prisoners.”
Charlie Kirk posted on X: “If you are a family member of a J6 hostage, go to the prison and show a copy [of the order]. They have to release the prisoner. Pardon power is absolute total and immediate. Don’t let them delay --- we demand immediate release! Bring them home!”
Other prisoners were allegedly abused while awaiting release. The PJ MEDIA story below cites the case of J. D. Lang, who’s been in solitary confinement for much of the time (four years) he’s been in prison WITHOUT A TRIAL. (How does this happen in the United States of America??) “A family member of J6er J. D. Lang,” it reports, “likely his fiancée, accused via Lang’s X account on Monday evening that he was assaulted by prison guards, handcuffed and thrown back in his cell while in the process of being released.”
As of early Tuesday morning, according to Lang’s posts on X, he and 20 others were still being held inside the “DC Gulag.” Their families were “standing outside in below freezing 10-degree weather when they released 2 hostages, there are still 20 of us in here!!!”
The PJ MEDIA piece is a must-read…
If you’d like, here’s some background on the J. D. Lang case, written a few weeks after Trump won in November. It’s true --- he’s spent all this time behind bars with no trial.
In an update from Salgado, the “gulag” has finally started releasing at least some of the J6 prisoners. But as of late Tuesday, some are still being held, allegedly over “paperwork issues” and unresolved state charges. Thankfully, Enrique Tarrio (22-year sentence), whose case we discussed recently, and Stewart Rhodes (18-year sentence) have been released from prison. Neither entered the Capitol building at any time that day.
J. D. Lang did say he’d been assaulted by prison guards before being released. Former Green Beret Jeremy Brown was apparently treated similarly; it’s not known at this writing if he’s been released yet. The story is a must-read…
BLAZE MEDIA also reports delays in releasing the prisoners. Sen. Mike Lee told Glenn Beck Tuesday morning that “From what we can tell, they haven’t complied with [the order] yet. It’s yet another reason to revisit DC’s Home Rule, which I think should be repealed.”
We’ll see what happens in the next day or so. If this is a case of defiance, then, yes, Congress will definitely be looking at DC’s so-called “Home Rule.” Leaders there don’t get to turn DC into their own fiefdom, their own little banana republic within the U.S.
RELATED: In his (or his handlers’) haste, President Biden forgot to pardon a few people on his way out on Monday. Yes, of course he pardoned his own family, Gen. Milley, Liz Cheney, Dr. Anthony Fauci and many, many others, but he forgot some:
--- Former “Special Counsel” Jack Smith (who by now is probably back in The Netherlands)
--- Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg
--- New York Judge Juan Merchan
--- Fulton County, Georgia, DA Fani Willis
--- Alexander Vindman (alleged to have leaked classified info related to Trump’s first impeachment)
Bob Hoge at REDSTATE takes a brief look at each…
Finally, speaking of Jack Smith, Florida Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Tuesday that the DOJ can’t share his final report with members of Congress, considering that two Trump co-defendants have not yet had their day in court and (surprise!) actually deserve a fair trial. “There is no ‘historical practice’ of providing Special Counsel reports to Congress,” she wrote, “even on a limited basis, pending conclusion of criminal proceedings.”
What do you bet that selected portions of it somehow get leaked anyway?
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/doj-trump-special-counsel/2025/01/21
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The treatment of the J6 prisoners, that turned them in to hostages by not releasing them as required by law, is the most disgusting betrayal by "justice" in this country so far. How do we hold our heads up to criticize other countries, when we allow liberal cities like DC to torture prisoners and ignore our laws? And now we hear that the PA Atty Gen will charge PA J6 people with "state" crimes and jail them AGAIN. It's cruelty that only Democrats would enforce. Shameful beyond belief.
Lincoln Brown's article is one if the best I've seen lately concerning the left's agenda. I watched the prayer service yesterday and was appalled by the political speech. It must have taken everything in President Trump to remain in his chair. But I'm thankful he did.