☕️ CANCELATION NOTICES ☙ Saturday, February 22, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Pentagon purge begins; media swallows Trump's Maine bait; Kiev's haggling backfires from orbit; Pelosi building goes up for sale; judge nixes TRO and okays USAID layoffs; much MAHA progress; more.
Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Time for the Weekend Edition. In today’s roundup: Trump torches Pentagon with Friday night purge; Maine governor Mills swallows the bait and media freaks out; Zelensky’s haggling days are coming to a close as he gets Netflix cancellation notice; poetic justice as Trump lists San Fran’s awkwardly named Pelosi Building for sale; federal judge denies Democrats a preliminary injunction and clears the way for USAID layoffs; and RFK Jr. quietly begins coralling the CDC, terrifying the vaccine-industrial complex.
🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍
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The New York Times published a dramatic headline so breathless it could fog an editorial mirror: “‘See You in Court’: Maine Governor Clashes With Trump Over Trans Rights.” You’ve probably seen the clip. But the hot takes have got it all wrong. It was classic Trump media trolling. He picked that fight on purpose.
He baited the hook, she took the bait, and Trump reeled her in.
Yesterday afternoon, Trump was addressing a meeting with the nation’s governors and he’d just started talking about protecting women’s sports. Then he said, “I understand Maine … is Maine here? The Governor of Maine?” Mills spoke up. Trump asked her, “Are you not gonna comply with it?” Mills said something like we’ll comply with it when hell freezes over. A short but spicy back and forth ensued, Trump said Maine won’t get any federal funding, and Mills snapped, “I’ll see you in court.”
Trump shot back, “Fine, I’ll see you in court. That should be a real easy one.”
“Every state has a responsibility to comply with Title IX,” Trump warned the assembled governors. “You have a legal obligation. We’ll be enforcing aggressively, and we’re going to protect our citizens.”
An hour after the meeting, the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Enforcement division sent a letter to Maine informing the state it was under investigation for violations of civil rights relating to women’s sports and inmates in women’s
prison facilities.
Media erupted in righteous anger or ecstasy, depending on the political point of view. The Times’ article glowingly praised Governor Mills for “standing up to” President Trump. Fox reported that Trump “owned” the governor. Social media streamed similar sentiments.
What everyone missed was that it was obviously a setup. It’s like the old prison yard playbook: deck the weakest guy first to send a message to everyone else. Trump knew Maine’s position going into the meeting. The DOE’s investigation announcement was locked and loaded. He singled out Mills to make Maine —arguably the politically weakest defiant state— into an example for the other governors. Don’t mess with us.
In other words, in just 60 seconds of dialog, Trump skillfully reframed the DOE investigation from a dull “picking on Maine over trans rights” story, into a thrilling “dust-up between the President and the Governor.” Instead of possibly getting sympathy for being singled out, Maine’s narrative is now, “Mills picked a fight with the President and found out.” And Trump transformed a dull investigation letter into a media frenzy. Genius.
They have grabbed hold of something white-hot this time, but they still have no idea their hands are on fire.
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“You’re fired.” The New York Times’s top story this morning was headlined, “Trump Fires Joint Chiefs Chairman Amid a Purge at the Pentagon.” In fairness, he helped effect the shambolic surrender in Afghanistan, transed the military, jabbed the Armed Forces, lost the Proxy War, and brought the world to the brink of World War III. Apart from that, Chuck Brown did great. “The Joint Chiefs chairman,” whined the Times, “traditionally remains in place as administrations change.”
In what the Nation’s slyest paper called “an extraordinary Friday night purge at the Pentagon,” six Pentagon officials were fired, including Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first uterus-having-person to lead the Navy; General James Slife, vice chief of the Air Force; and the three head lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Trump replaced Chairman Brown with retired three-star Air Force General Dan “Razin” Caine, who’s returning from retirement (obviously)— something that has never happened before, but which perhaps symbolizes a military fractured by woke policy, mandates, and conservative warriors passed over for promotion. But Trump generously praised General Brown while showing him the door. “He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” the President wrote.
He had a chance to go gracefully. But General Brown repeatedly told aides that he would not resign.
It takes a certain degree of cognitive impairment to act surprised by this “transgressive” violation of military “norms and customs.” In a November interview, before he became Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth signaled this would happen. “First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Pete said on the Shawn Ryan Show. In November. He added that any general involved with D.E.I. efforts should be fired. “Either you’re in for warfighting, or that’s it,” he warned.
It’s another moment of clarity over the difference between Trump 1.0 and 2.0. In 2019, President Trump disastrously picked General Mark Milley, “a decision,” the Times smugly noted, “the president came to bitterly regret.” Us too.
Let the healing of our military begin.
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ABC-7 ran a heartwarming little revenge story yesterday under the unnecessarily wordy headline, “Pres. Donald Trump looking to sell Nancy Pelosi Federal Building, 50 United Nations Plaza in San Francisco and San Bruno building.” And they had just renamed it to the “Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” in December.
CLIP: ABC-7 reports ‘it’s all about payback’ as Trump ‘is coming after California’ (0:27).
The financial downsizing move infuriated progressives. Activate the outrage orchestra. “It's another example of how he is coming after Democrats. He's coming after California, and it's all about payback," former Congresswoman Jackie Speier told reporters. But the Trump administration explained it will save money by avoiding maintenance costs, selling the properties, then leasing office space for federal workers.
On February 4, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dramatically tore up her copy of President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address. Just saying. Karma doesn’t need to rip paper—Karma just signs the deed.
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After years of grifting with the skill of a Times Square card shark, height-challenged Zelensky is now about 51 cards short of a deck. Reuters ran the story yesterday headlined, “Exclusive: US could cut Ukraine's access to Starlink internet services over minerals, say sources.” After spurning President Trump’s proposal to pay back US military support via a lien on Ukraine’s mineral rights, “sources” said US negotiators “hinted” that Ukraine’s Starlink access could get cut off if Zelensky doesn’t play ball.
In an interview yesterday with independent investigative journalist Catherine Herridge, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained how the minerals deal was actually in Ukraine’s best interests. A U.S. financial stake in Ukraine would essentially give Zelensky the security guarantees he’s been demanding, since the U.S. would have a vested interest in protecting those rights. Rubio said that Zelensky had immediately agreed to the deal but told the U.S. team that he couldn’t sign right now because he first needed to get his legislature’s approval.
Zelensku told Rubio and his team that he would get right back to them.
But then the diminutive Ukrainian weasel went on social media bragging about how he’d “stood up to the Americans” and refused to sign their colonialist oppression. In short, Zelensky said screw you, we aren’t paying you a red kopeck.
That was the last straw. The Americans have had it. They are sick of his nonsense. So fine. You don’t want to make a deal? You want to go around lying about America’s good intentions? Then no more gifts like Starlink service. Ukraine’s free Netflix binge is over.
If Starlink goes dark in Ukraine, it’s military will also be in the dark. The Russians are jamming normal electronic communications. Starlink is all Kiev has. But Starlink is, after all, just another free gift. Biden forced Starlink —against Elon Musk’s desire that his satellite internet service never be used for war— to give free Starlink to Ukraine’s army.
The suggestion of cutting off Ukraine’s internet worked. Just like that threat works with teenagers. Hours later, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Ukraine Promises Swift Deal for Minerals as Trump Cuts Kyiv Out of Peace Talks.” It wasn’t even our idea. The Times added, “The idea of trading natural resources for U.S. assistance was first put forward by Ukraine, but Mr. Zelensky balked.”
“Several aides to Mr. Zelensky,” the Times noted, “believe that a new version of the agreement under discussion on Thursday addresses his concerns, and have now advised Mr. Zelensky to sign it.”
“This agreement can add value to our relations — what matters most is getting the details right to ensure it truly works,” Mr. Zelensky said in a social media post yesterday, taking a markedly different tone.
President Trump has suggested the deal could help repay up to $500 billion to the United States. “Biden just gave them money — there was no loan, there was no security, there was no anything,” Trump said. “So we’re going to either sign a deal, or there’s going to be a lot of problems for them. So we’re going to sign a deal, to get security.”
The truth is the Ukrainians haggle better than Turkish rug merchants, but Trump can dicker with the best of them. Biden didn’t; the Europeans can’t; so Zelensky ran roughshod for nearly four years. Kiev’s gravy train is finally reaching its ultimate destination. Please prepare to disembark.
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Right on schedule, as I predicted, it blew up on the launch pad. NBC ran a terrific story yesterday headlined, “Judge gives go-ahead for the Trump administration to gut USAID's workforce.” The sub-headline explained, “The decision comes after the judge had temporarily paused efforts to place thousands of USAID employees on administrative leave following a lawsuit by labor groups.”
Following the hearing on the preliminary injunction, Judge Terry Nichols dissolved his earlier temporary restraining order. “Weighing plaintiffs’ assertions on these questions against the government’s is like comparing apples to oranges,” the judge wrote. “Where one side claims that USAID’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the Court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction.”
Womp, womp. Judge Nichols apparently either didn’t feel like playing hero for bureaucrats, or he decided that this case wasn’t the best case to test the unitary theory of executive power on appeal.
As I’ve explained, short-term TROs are relatively easy. Longer-lasting preliminary injunctions are brutal.
The judge explained he could not find sufficient irreparable harm — an extremely difficult showing for employees getting laid off. “Plaintiffs have presented no irreparable harm they or their members are imminently likely to suffer from the hypothetical future dissolution of USAID,” Nichols wrote. He added, nor is it “clear why the speed of proceedings in the relevant agencies would be insufficient to address the only actions that have already happened and are presently ripe for review: administrative leave placements, expedited evacuations, and other changes to working conditions of the sort those bodies routinely confront.”
The plaintiff unions vowed to appeal. If there is a harder case to appeal than the denial of a preliminary injunction, I’m not sure what it could be. But if they do appeal, it will only play right into Trump’s lawyers’ hands, who are praying for a window to launch challenges over executive powers toward the Supreme Court.
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Right on cue, the conservative circular firing squad spent the week unloading all its ammo on newly confirmed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—calling him a ‘sell-out’ (and worse) for not immediately outlawing every vaccine in sight, or something equally incoherent. Large-following health freedom influencers—who I won’t name—labeled MAHA a ‘fake movement’ and a ‘psyop.’ It’s exhausting.
I think the trouble started during Kennedy’s contentious confirmation hearings. Over and over, senators from both parties pressed the new Secretary to promise, to swear, he wouldn’t delete the childhood vaccination schedule. Kennedy made no promises, but he equivocated like any good politician and generally made reassuring noises.
I get it. After decades of derision, after being mocked, ostracized, and exiled from polite society as kooky ‘anti-vaxxers,’ many in the MAHA movement believed this was their moment. Zero patience. Zero tolerance. No prisoners. The last thing they wanted to see was their champion, Kennedy, waffling under Senate pressure.
But yesterday, just days into newly confirmed Senator Kennedy’s term, the UK Daily Mail ran what should be a very encouraging article under the headline, “RFK Jr issues two bombshell orders on vaccines in move that has mainstream doctors terrified.” That’s not all, either. Details of Kennedy’s first decisions are beginning to emerge, and they should be reassuring to his MAHA critics.
The first bombshell exploded when the CDC canceled its moronic annual flu shot campaign. Boom number one. This year’s campaign was branded “wild to mild,” with dramatic images of lions next to kittens, suggesting that the shots “tame” a virus into a feline companion or something. Pulling the campaign was common sense— even corporate media reported the flu jab efficacy was languishing around placebo levels. What’s the use?
Second, Kennedy has directed the CDC to stop with the Orwellian “nudge” tactics, fearmongering, and manipulative psyops, and focus its vaccine communications instead on the science, meaning in this case informed consent. For Portland readers, that means telling people about the real risks and benefits— without terrifying tall tales or emotional manipulation, just the facts. More common sense.
It’s hilarious. He’s daring Democrats to oppose informed consent. Common sense, yes, but of course, “common” sense has become very scarce over the last five years.
Next, remember these perfidious clowns?
Third, and maybe best of all, the CDC indefinitely suspended its 19-member, tri-annual “panel” of vaccine advisors, the so-called Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which during the pandemic rubber-stamped every new covid shot, whether for infants, pregnant women, or people who don’t want shots. Behold yesterday’s Washington Post headline:
Not just postponed. Postponed indefinitely. While Kennedy’s “friends” in the MAHA movement are busy calling him a sell-out and a turncoat, corporate media is running stories with paragraphs like this one, from the WaPo article:
WaPo said that unnamed “experts” have unlocked a new fear. “Experts,” WaPo vaguely reported, “fear that Kennedy — who has asserted the panel fails to adequately test vaccines and be transparent about safety data — could use his authority to potentially steer vaccine skeptics to the advisory committee or to abolish the panel altogether.”
Not that! Not dastardly vaccine skeptics! Not on their precious committee!
I, for one, would be fine with abolishing the panel altogether. It’s obviously useless. The one time it did stand up to Biden’s CDC over infant covid jabs, the CDC approved the shots anyway, and the APIC subsequently re-voted in favor. Totally useless.
News of the canceled meeting drew swift fury. More than 50 “medical experts and organizations” dispatched a strongly-worded letter to Secretary Kennedy, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who’d pushed Kennedy to agree not to change the current vaccine system, and CDC’s acting director, Susan Monarez, demanding they keep the panel’s current meeting and agenda.
To the “experts,” this is catastrophic news. “Without the meeting,” WaPo advised darkly, “Americans will have to wait indefinitely for the recommendations for newly licensed vaccines.” Also, pharma and its legions of remora-like hangers-on will have to wait indefinitely for incredibly profitable new vaccines.
Kennedy’s been on the job for one week. Constant carping from MAHA critics isn’t just misguided—it’s feeding ammo into Big Pharma’s machine gun batteries. Let the man work. We didn’t get into this mess in one day, and it will take some time to unravel. But it is happening.
If these early tremors are any indication, we’re on the brink of a seismic shift in America’s health landscape. It’s time to Make America Healthy Again.
Have a wonderful weekend! Be sure to be back here Monday morning for a new roundup of essential news and commentary that makes you smarter AND healthier.
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Jeff, am I the only one aghast at the disrespect shown (by Governors etc.) to the President? You may not like him personally, but doesn’t the Office itself deserve respect? What happened to good manners?
One of the things I am loving about this new administration is the Art of the Troll! They don’t have to print anything…they troll and MSM does the rest - and the reporting is sooooo ludicrous that they expose themselves fully to the American people. Oh how glorious it is.