Republicans, in the Senate and especially the House, have shown remarkable discipline since President Donald J. Trump took office. Democrats no doubt expected such discipline to fail repeatedly, given the slim margins by which Republican control each chamber. Instead, Party discipline has held – and Democrats are more frightened than ever at what this implies.

Tally of Party discipline, in the Senate

In the Senate, only one Republican consistently breaks Party discipline: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He voted against the confirmations of:

1. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) as Director of National Intelligence, and of:

2. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Every other Republican voted Yes, so those confirmations passed. So Sen. McConnell, each time, made one of the bitterest concession speeches ever heard in the famously staid Senate chamber. The Senate of the United States, unlike the ancient Senate of Rome, frowns upon invective – but McConnell couldn’t help himself. He accused Gabbard of an offense tantamount to aiding and abetting treason, and cited Edward Snowden to back his accusation. Likewise, he accused Kennedy of planning to end all childhood and other vaccines.

I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.

Too late, Senator. The parents of many children who landed on the Autism Spectrum after but one jab are indeed preparing to re-litigate the Vaccine Regime. So are the survivors of those who took the coronavirus jabs – because more patients died from those vaccines than from complications of coronavirus infection. As a former physician, your editor could wish Secretary Kennedy would announce a project to re-evaluate every childhood vaccine.

Happily, Sen. McConnell is no longer Senate Republican Leader. The new Leader, John Thune (R-S.D.), is actually proud of maintaining Party discipline – and confirming Trump’s nominees “with all deliberate speed.” (Apologies to the Supreme Court’s majority in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education.)

Wither Senator McConnell?

RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree dropped a medium-form post on X embedding part of her interview with President Trump. Naturally Sen. McConnell’s attitude came up. Said Trump:

I feel sorry for Mitch... He's not equipped mentally. He wasn't equipped ten years ago mentally. He let the Republican party go to h*ll.… If I didn't come along, the Republican party wouldn't even exist right now. Mitch McConnell never really had it.… He had an ability to raise money because of his position as leader, which anybody could do. You could do it even, and that's saying a lot.

https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1890139735919653118

Crabtree added that she doesn’t think Trump will “make it easy” for Sen. McConnell to “stick around until January 2027.” Indeed McConnell might not be able to. He has taken repeated falls in the last ninety days, on December 10, 2024, and on February 5, 2025 (twice in one day). Now he’s confined to a wheelchair, and didn’t even attend the January 6 Presidential election certification. Nor was that from spite; witnesses said he “could barely walk.”

Yet he is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. On why the Senate Republican Conference so chose to reward bad behavior and worse performance, speculation is useless. His tenure in those positions – however long it lasts – will be the most severe test of Senate Republican discipline in the 119^th Congress.

The only reason Senate Republicans don’t press him to resign – apart from not wanting to join Democrats in a resolution of expulsion – is named Andy Beshear. That’s Gov. Andy Beshear, Democrat of Kentucky. True, Sen. McConnell prevailed on his Republican friends in the Kentucky legislature to pass a law forcing the Governor to appoint an Interim Senator of the same Party as an expelled, deceased, or resigned Senator. But Beshear has already all but said he will appoint whom he d____d well pleases. Stay. Tuned.

… and in the House

The only reading anyone has on House Republican discipline is indirect. The Senate has no vacancies, but only because Governors may appoint Interim Senators, but not Interim Representatives. Currently the House has 218 Republicans and 215 Democrats – with two vacancies, in Florida’s First and Sixth Districts. Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz held those seats. Gaetz resigned from Congress in a futile attempt to avoid a manufactured scandal. Waltz has become National Security Adviser to President Trump. Florida will hold special elections to fill those seats in April.

But Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is currently in the confirmation process to become Ambassador to the United Nations. When her seat falls vacant, New York might leave that seat vacant until November. New York’s legislature is considering a bill to provide for precisely that.

These considerations might possibly give House Republicans the impression that they are under siege. That, more than anything else, could explain their disciplined posture. In any case, Joy Reid, hostess of MSNBC’s The Reid Out, actually cried out in terror during an interview with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), House Democratic Leader.

Reid: What’s the point of passing a budget if Republicans have already conceded that they are not in charge, that you or the Congress is not in charge of spending money? Elon Musk is. What’s the point of passing a budget if it’s really Elon Musk’s decision whether that budget is adhered to?

Jeffries: It only takes three House Republicans to do the right thing on behalf of the people that they represent. [By which he meant, break discipline and vote with the Democrats.]

Reid: But we’ve seen, Leader Jeffries, that there aren’t three. There aren’t any! If Donald Trump announced tomorrow that he was selling the United States to Vladimir Putin personally and that we will now be owned by the Kremlin, every single Republican would say, “Yes, sir,” and vote for it. We already have seen their behavior. We’ve stopped – I think most of us – have stopped expecting any different behavior from them.

Reid’s point, all melodrama aside, is that the House Republican Conference seems to be under very tight discipline. For that, Democrats can blame themselves. Playing games with Elise Stefanik’s impending vacancy, releasing Matt Gaetz’ House Ethics report in complete violation of the rules – what else could they expect? Discipline strengthens instantly in the face of enemy attack.

Discipline in the Executive branch, also

Also this morning, Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit has taken notice of similar discipline in Trump’s Second Administration.

The usual political weapons of scandal-mongering, media hysteria, and establishment sabotage have failed to dent Trump’s momentum, leaving Democrats scrambling for answers.

Of course they have. The Deep State should never have attempted an assassination – not once but twice. Trump’s nominees have won the fastest confirmations in recent memory, and all are eager to get to work. The spectacle of Democrats defending wasteful, fraudulent, and even abusive spending, in light of revelations by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, has probably stiffened a few spines – or more likely, raised more than a few sets of hackles. Add to it the (so far) unfounded charge that Kennedy intends to promote a vaccine-less child wellness paradigm. He definitely will tackle deficiencies in the Standard American Diet (SAD!) and other things that cheat Americans of their health. Many of those things are conventional drugs – and the makers of those drugs still own a lot of tame Senators. (And Representatives.) That ownership will likely avail them nothing.

In the meantime, two Democratic Senators, who were up for reelection next Midterms, will not run. They are Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.). Sen. Peters was involved in, and benefited from, voter fraud. Why Sen. Smith chose not to seek reelection, remains a mystery.

Republicans’ newfound Party discipline will face its most challenging tests in the months ahead. The next challenge will come with a budget reconciliation package. Will discipline hold? Again, stay tuned.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/02/14/news/discipline-republican-party/

Video:

Susan Crabtree’s post:

https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1890139735919653118

Video: interview including Joy Reid and Hakeem Jeffries:

Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth

Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/

Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/

Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

A new kind of revolution is sweeping the United States, and arguably Western Europe. Dr. Steve Turley calls it civilizational populism. His premise states that the people want their civilizations back, and refuse to submit to any one-world government. This revolution, thus far, is bloodless, and one can hope it will so remain. But it might reach much further and last much longer for that very reason.

Ideologies of revolution and reaction

Political movements always take these labels, in order of more “forward” movement:

• Reaction – changing things back to where they rested a short while ago,

• Conservatism – keeping things as they are,

• Moderation – changing things only a little,

• Radicalism – literally moving the roots of society and social custom, and

• Revolution – the most sweeping change of all.

Revolution and radical change can move in any direction; reaction is simply a short-term back-slide. Usually, reaction is a pushback against revolution. So a particular ideology always animates a revolution – and its diametric opposite animates reaction.

Today’s revolution has two animating ideologies now working hand-in-hand. Civilization or civilizationalism means developing, preserving, or returning to a culture that the revolutionaries desire. The civilizational movement seeks a thriving society, and a culture enabling it to thrive. Populism means trusting the people, not some cadre of enlightened engineers (technocracy) or other experts. Ironically, the Greek word for an expert is empeirognomonas – one who has gone to school to learn how to work out how the world works by testing it. (From the Greek peirazo I test, usually to failure). But today’s self-identifying experts have tested nothing and don’t want anyone to test their pretended theories (explanations). They want people merely to accept their word without question.

Today’s civilizational populists will no longer accept the word of those who claim to have a tested answer. More to the point, the world’s peoples have tested the one-worlders’ theories. And those theories have failed.

Steps and elements of revolution

Revolution is never a single event, but a progression of events, each one a step toward the goal. (The goal of any revolution is the realization of the ideology of those who make it.) History shows that these steps generally take place in this order:

• A social environment in which some of society’s members stand at a material or other disadvantage,

• Suspicion that this environment is not “natural,” but that some other(s) made that environment (and that it is unjust),

• Denial by those in power that they played any unjust role in shaping that environment,

• The discovery of evidence that those in power did play such an unjust role – or that they benefit materially from the injustice and refuse to address it,

• Outrage at this sordid state of affairs,

• Attempted suppression of the outrage,

• Revolt against the unjust system, and finally,

• Reconciliation of the injustice.

For example

For example, consider the War Between the States, which Philip Lee Ralph (World Civilizations, which saw its ninth edition in 1999)) calls “The Real American Revolution.” Its elements were:

• Environment: slavery.

• Suspicion: the first pamphlets advocating abolition, which arguably began with an early draft of the Declaration of Independence.

• Denial: actual defenses of slavery from the South, even to citing some of St. Paul’s Letters as tolerating slavery. Those denials also included suggestions that the slaves were happy in and with their lot.

• Evidence: credible stories from escapees and witnesses, including the “stationmasters” and “conductors” of the Underground Railroad,

• Outrage: increasing support for abolition. Arguably this included Nat Turner’s Rebellion of 1832 and the Harpers Ferry Incident of 1859.

• Suppression: three major incidents. They were:

  • The Supreme Court’s holding in Scott v. Sandford (60 U.S. 393 (1857)), that no slave had standing in federal court. According to that holding, once a slave, always a slave.

  • The execution of John Brown, the would-be revolutionary leader at Harpers Ferry, and finally:

  • After the election of Abraham Lincoln as President, the secession of the “slave States” and the Sack of Fort Sumter.

• Revolt: the War itself.

• Reconciliation: the Reconstruction Era, with its provisional governments, land expropriation (accomplished through tax sales), etc.

Group punishment leads to more injustice

As an aside, reconciliation can be a delicate undertaking. If it consists of “group punishment,” that could set the stage for a counter-revolution in later years. That happened after the War Between the States. Happily that counter-revolution was relatively bloodless: it consisted of the Compromise of 1876. Essentially the Democratic Party let Rutherford B. Hayes take office, though they (from their viewpoint) had reason to dispute twenty electoral votes and, with them, the election itself. But they demanded, as their price, the removal of all remaining occupying garrisons and provisional governments from the defeated South. The Jim Crow era succeeded to this, and would require another revolution to reverse it. And as it happened, more discontent resulted from the disastrous policy prescription offered for reconciliation: James Coleman’s desegregation busing.

And here is the “joker in the deck.” Certain groups of people, compelled to rule, will ensure that discontent always remains after every reconciliation measure that follows revolution. To do that in the United States, they must inevitably violate the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States does not allow group punishments. Article I Section 9 Clause 3:

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

Sadly the Supreme Court deviated from that, with their rulings on desegregation busing, then their split decision on “affirmative action.” Regents of the University of California v. Allan Paul Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978). But the modern Supreme Court has reaffirmed a commitment to justice for the individual, not the group. SFFA v. Harvard and U.N.C., 600 U.S. ___ (2023), slip opinion.

The civilizational populist revolution of today

We now come to the civilizational populist revolution, the revolt phase of which is now playing out. The environment is an overreaching administrative state that assembled itself beginning with the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Statutes like the Pure Food and Drug Act set the precedent for an “expert” regime. Such was the essence of progressivism – to step forward under the guiding hands of a cadre of natural, medical, and social scientists who would present tested theories by which to govern. By no accident, Dr. Abraham Flexner took the opportunity to abolish the old medical apprenticeship system (“reading medicine”) and replace it with formal schools of medicine, teaching hospitals, etc.

Central to the legitimacy of this expert class were the concepts of:

• An academic regime that would produce “experts” having recognizable credentials, and

• The incapacity of the non-educated “many” (the hoi polloi) to understand that which only students at elite schools understood.

With that incapacity came the incapacity of the people even to govern themselves. So people throughout the Western world accepted often outlandish notions, because “such-a-one went to Harvard (or Yale, Princeton, etc.), so surely he knows better than you do.”

The first suspicions

But then came the event that first provoked suspicion. After the Second World War, elements of the (Chinese) People’s Liberation Army captured and wrongfully executed Captain John Birch USA. This American missionary had proved instrumental in:

• Saving the lives of Jimmy Doolittle and his crews after they crash-landed in China after their raid on Tokyo, then:

• Creating the intelligence network that served the Allies in that theater.

The United States government covered up the circumstances of Captain Birch’s death. Outraged, Mr. Robert Welch honored Captain Birch by placing his name on a new political-educational society he created in 1958.

Welch was the first to suspect that a vast conspiracy was creating conditions that thwarted prosperity, and provoked war, at opportune moments for armorers, bankers, and the like. He considered the cover-up of Captain John Birch’s death part and parcel of a mindset that individual life was cheap.

The John Birch Society does not endorse candidates – and for the first decades, no one listened to them. But its members kept whispering into people’s ears: ever notice how convenient all this endless hostility is? That whispering might slow down, but it never stopped. And to this day, the John Birch Society encourages us to apply a time-honored maxim of criminal investigation. Seek whom the crime will profit. Which is right up there with Fleming’s Maxim:

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time it’s enemy action.

Denial, evidence, and outrage

Of course the two Party establishments denied flatly that any vast conspiracy could start wars. But those establishments bought into the ideology of a conspiracy that does exist: the World Economic Forum. They carried the notions of academic elites, and the incapacity of ordinary citizen-subjects to govern themselves, to a high art.

To succeed, revolution requires the ascension of a person or persons who understand that all is not as it seems. Donald Trump was and is that man. From the moment he took over the Central Park ice rink and repaired it, he became famous, not only as a real-estate tycoon but also as one who succeeded where governments failed.

His election in 2016 put Trump in a position to see and gather evidence that the conspiracy of which Robert Welch’s John Birch society spoke, or at least a conspiracy as nefarious as any that Welch hypothesized (and trained his followers to search out), was and is real. Trump named that conspiracy The Deep State, which he defined as consisting of bureaucratic hangers-on.

Then the conspirators, with apologies to George Lucas, struck back. The Election of 2020 went for Joe Biden – in ways that utterly violated the Law of Averages. Violation of the Law of Averages is always prima facie evidence of cheating at games of chance. And so the people, waking up the morning after Election Day to see the result reversed, reacted in outrage.

Suppression and revolt – the end stages of the revolution

The Deep State had been suppressing the truth for at least two years before Election Day. Consider the Hunter Biden Laptop Story, and the 51 “spooks” who denounced it as a Russian lie. (Suppression always works best with the perception, real, exaggerated, imagined, or misconstrued, of an external enemy.) Consider also the coronavirus outbreak, and the worst mistake Trump made: letting the experts tell him to close the country down, as happens in Albert Camus’ novel The Plague.

The January 6 Event, and the ruthless – and unjust – prosecutions that followed, represented the worst single suppressive operation. That suppression continued with the Mar-A-Lago Raid and all the cases against Mr. Trump. But along the way, the people were preparing for revolt even then. (The January 6 Event does not count; that belongs strictly to the outrage phase.) People applied for, and won, postings as poll watchers and workers. Step aside, Little Old Ladies In Tennis Shoes! Step aside, Democrat operatives! The “election-integrity patriots” made only one error: assuming that someone was actually manipulating the scanner-tabulators that count most votes today. Gradually they discovered the real problem: voter rolls listing the dead, the move-outs, and people “living” in big-box stores, etc.

Then the Deep State tried to have Trump assassinated. And they failed. But that failure produced the iconic display of a wounded man standing up and exhorting his followers to fight.

The Election of 2024, with “rightward shifts” in every demographic, and every district, constitutes the revolt.

Reconciliation phase

America now is in the reconciliation phase – or the Truth and Reconciliation phase, to borrow a phrase from South Africa. Donald Trump now has the best cadre of executive officers any President has ever had – and they are his team. (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., won confirmation today as Secretary of Health and Human Services.) He also has a good “hatchet man” in Elon Musk – another genius who, like him, stumbled upon evidence of the conspiracy in his own endeavors.

Reconciliation always involves some sort of tribunal, and a cadre of gatherers of evidence. That is the function of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – to gather further evidence to use in revolutionary tribunals.

And members of the Establishment know how vulnerable they are. This morning, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) let slip their real concern:

We don’t know what all they have on us!

https://x.com/WesternLensman/status/1890025328996946096

Sen. Mitch McConnell (RINO-Ky.), the lone Republican to vote No on Mr. Kennedy, made a bitter concession speech. Like Rep. Waters, he expressed his real worry: the destruction of the Vaccine Regime. Yesterday he delivered a similar screed against new Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. He all but called her a traitor, and definitely called her a sympathizer with traitors. (His case in point: Edward Snowden.)

Sorry, Senator, but the people know better. The Overton Window has shifted, to the point whereat we need not consider vaccines, or endless wars, necessary. Nor programs from which Democrats get a cut, skimmed off the top, as DOGE keeps discovering.

What next for the revolution?

Some members of the Establishment are already talking of counter-revolution – on the level of actual physical violence. Yesterday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) continued in the vein of Rep. Waters:

BREAKING: Dem. Rep. Robert Garcia just called for “ACTUAL WEAPONS” to be used against Elon Musk in this “fight for democracy.” This comes after an ad popped up in DC today, CLEARLY calling for the assassination of Musk. Democrats are VlOLENT. The events of this week have made that clearer than ever! THEY MUST BE CHARGED!

https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1889810449191113123

This is what Nick Sortor was talking about:

'ELIMINATE ELON' AD SPARKS OUTRAGE AS SENATOR DEMANDS INVESTIGATION. A disturbing advertisement featuring USAID's logo and calling to "eliminate" Elon has drawn congressional attention. Senator Tillis: “This disgusting threat was made against Elon for helping President Trump eliminate government waste.” Looks like someone's taking DOGE's fraud investigations personally.

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1889818691984093235

But very few people are responding to these attempted calls-to-arms. Anyone who does, will answer to the new Attorney General and her staff.

Beyond that, the first judgments in the revolution extend not much further than firing, and disqualification from re-hiring. But prosecutions for embezzlement and similar corrupt practices should take place. Voters will have to render further judgments – which makes imperative Trump’s desire to have all federal elections take place on paper, with election workers trained to count actual votes by hand.

The United States has the means to carry out the revolution in a bloodless fashion. Whether it stays that way, depends on whether certain people can accept the judgment of the people.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/02/13/news/revolution-civilizational-populism/

Video:

]

Salient Supreme Court decisions:

Dred Scott:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/60us393

Swann:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/402/1/

Allan Paul Bakke:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/regents_of_the_university_of_california_v_bakke_(1978)

SFFA v. Harvard and U.N.C.:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf

John Birch Society:

Home:

https://jbs.org/

John Birch’s life:

https://jbs.org/about/john-birch/

Maxine Waters lets slip:

https://x.com/WesternLensman/status/1890025328996946096

Robert Garcia’s call for violence:

https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1889810449191113123

Anti-Musk ad:

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1889818691984093235

Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth

Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/

Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/

Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

Elon Musk has many names, not all of them flattering – nor just, either. The names that do apply are: hatchet man, enforcer, force of nature, and scourge of the bureaucracy. Add one more: champion of justice. He fights for justice as only one on the Autism Spectrum can – with single-mindedness of purpose. Frank D. “Heartland Diary” Miele sees that quality in Trump, especially after the first assassination attempt. Elon Musk might not have had someone try to kill him, but he has realized that certain people – all on the Left – lied to him. Chief among the groups who lied to him for years, are the Deep State. He is now their implacable enemy – and as he fights his war, he has drawn the fire of Democrats, legacy media personalities – and other similar enemies of the people.

Elon Musk cuts a swath through the bureaucracy

No doubt the American and worldwide Left had reason to fear Elon Musk even before the Inauguration. He bought Twitter (now X) and promptly uncovered and exposed its darkest secrets. Though he clashed with President Donald Trump in his first term, he gradually came to see justice in Trump’s claims. He gave generously to Trump’s election campaign, and then won the promise of a special post in government. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) originally was to have joint headship – but the other head, Vivek Ramaswamy, bowed out. (Joint headship was never a good idea anyway.) The only flaw in the DOGE plan was creating it by executive order, not an Act of Congress. (Speaking of which, Musk has threatened to “primary” anyone in Congress, Democrat or especially Republican, who opposes his mission.)

President Trump signed many more executive orders besides the one creating DOGE. How they play out, remains for the people to see.

Darrell L. Castle, once a Presidential candidate himself, looked forward to DOGE “downsizing government to starve the beast.” The “beast” in Castle’s mind is the burgeoning national debt. But that turns out not to be the real beast. The real beast is not only the spending but what the government is spending the money on. That spending includes not only waste but also fraud – and, more pointedly still, abuse.

The war begins

Ironically, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a 21-page letter to Elon Musk three days after the Inauguration. That letter was full of ideas of her own, including reform of:

• Pentagon procurement and contracting,

• Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C and its replacements), and

• Federal grants to private colleges, including the Ivy League.

That was January. Even so, that letter concentrated on typical leftist priorities, including raising revenue from disfavored high-end taxpayers (“the wealthy”). Since then, she has raised a shrill voice in opposition to Musk, along with several other Democratic Senators and Representatives. (In fact, Elon Musk does plan to audit the Pentagon, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Ironically, Musk has spoken of a volume of Medicare fraud similar to that which Sen. Warren mentioned.)

When Elon Musk attacked the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the war began in earnest. Its blatant support of Alphabet Soup ideology was bad enough – especially to Musk, concerned as he is with population collapse. (Alphabet Soup lifestyles are inherently anti-procreative.) But then came revelations that leftist media organs, including Politico, were deriving make-or-break revenues through the sale of premium subscriptions at absurd rates. USAID was one of several federal agencies (and Departments) whose bureaucrats were taking out such subscriptions. Politico literally missed payroll – and Elon Musk warned that other leftist media could face similar financial difficulty.

The Customs and Border Protection agency has literally taken over the USAID building.

From USAID to other agencies

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came next. In addition to their political selectivity in aid to hurricane survivors, FEMA spent $59 million on hotel stays for illegal aliens. Elon Musk “paused” several FEMA payments that he suspects are improper. President Trump has since fired FEMA’s Chief Financial Officer and three other executives over the $59 million hotel stays. (Because those happened during his second administration, Trump considers that insubordination.) Yesterday Trump said the agency is “under review and investigation” and “should be terminated.”

Musk similarly has targeted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency most consider Sen. Warren’s creation. The CFPB is famous for warning banks and other lenders not to refuse credit to illegal aliens. Trump had already fired the Bureau’s Biden-appointed Director.

But his targeting of the Treasury Department has resulted in the most sensational revelations – and the most strenuous pushback. Why has the Treasury Department been funding terrorist groups? (David Lebryk, then the “top-ranking career official” at Treasury, resigned when Musk and his team came in.) More recently, DOGE investigators have found Social Security making payments to beneficiaries allegedly 150 years old. (Human longevity is the one world record most subject to fraudulent claims. The oldest verified living person today is 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka of Japan.) DOGE also intends investigating several federal bureaucrats who have become multimillionaires on six-figure salaries.

Counterattacks against Elon Musk

Naturally the counterattacks have come, from Members of Congress and the legacy media. The New York Times disputes Elon Musk’s claims of waste and fraud. Similarly, NBC News accuses Musk of making nonspecific and unfounded allegations of waste, fraud and abuse. (Anyone who cites “independent fact-checkers is automatically suspect.)

CNN alleges that some Republicans, who represent districts where large numbers of federal workers live, are “pushing back” on those workers’ behalf. (Much of what CNN calls “pushback” is simply the usual constituent service the people expect of their Senators and Representative.) In another article, CNN said “President Donald Trump is playing with fire.” This is another booby-prize example of legacy media trying to drive a wedge between Trump and Musk. Time acted similarly, posting an electronic retouch of Musk sitting at the Presidential or Resolute Desk. Trump laughed out loud at the cover, during a photo-op interview.

Q: Mr. President, do you have a reaction to the new Time Magazine cover that has Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk?

A: No… Is Time magazine still in business? I didn't even know that.

https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1887923713443774522

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper tried to press that theme in an interview with former Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.). Sununu was having none of it, so Cooper called him an off-color name – for which he did, at least, apologize.

Conduct unbecoming a Senator…

Elon Musk’s activities have drawn court challenges, most of which will likely not survive Supreme Court scrutiny. In fact, one order directed that not only Musk but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stay out of the Treasury payment system. Another judge cleared Bessent, because he is a Senate-confirmed appointee. Whether the distinction between him and Musk will hold up, remains for the Supreme Court to determine.

In any case, the Trump administration appears ready to ignore rulings that obviously violate separation of powers. Sen. Warren took note of that and suggested Trump and Musk are provoking a Constitutional crisis. But her recent remarks contrast sharply with her decrying the Supreme Court after it issued a primer on Presidential immunity. After that and other cases, Sen. Warren often called on the Biden administration to ignore the courts.

At a recent hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, Warren complained bitterly over the shutdown of the CFPB. On that occasion she referred to Musk as “Co-President.” Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) sharply reminded her Massachusetts counterpart that Donald Trump is fulfilling campaign promises. Then she savagely reminded Warren of Democrats’ covering for President Biden when he clearly couldn’t run the country.

And it’s interesting that none of you had anything to say over the last four years when it is clear that our commander-in-chief was not in command. And if we’re going to use the term “co-President,” then let’s go back and say “Co-President Jake Sullivan,” “Co-President Ron Klain,” “Co-President Jill Biden,” [et al.] … Some of the biggest decisions were made during the President’s afternoon nap time.

https://x.com/GlockfordFiles/status/1889433596160815347

Sen. Charles M. Schumer (D-N.Y.) set up a “