☕️ FIAT VERITAS ☙ Saturday, March 22, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Morning monologue sets CIA story in context; Dem chaos turns ugly; Trump’s gold card rakes cash; security clearances axed; activist colleges and law firms cave; lawyers now in DOJ’s sights; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Time for the Weekend Edition. Today’s roundup includes: a morning monologue setting the “CIA Files” story in more context; political chaos in the Democrat party devolves into proper chaos, hate speech, and domestic terror; Trump’s new gold-card program already winning customers and gushing cash; Trump clears the security clearance deck, including scrapping all cabbage leftovers; and activist lawyers find themselves in the DOJ’s crosshairs.

🪖 C&C MORNING MONOLOGUE 🪖

As the JFK files continue spilling the intelligence community’s dark secrets, it is worth recalling why we even have a CIA in the first place.

Let’s be crystal clear: dirty tricks are not part of the CIA’s legal charter. The Agency was created to collect and analyze foreign intelligence—not to blow up nuclear power plants, poison rice fields, or orchestrate coups. Its mission is information gathering, not covert warfare. The so-called “special activities” wing wasn’t in the original blueprint; it grew like a tumor during the Cold War, fed by secrecy and unchecked power. This week’s newly unredacted documents don’t merely reveal rogue operations— they expose a decades-long deviation from lawful authority.

Mission creep became mission metastasis.

While the broader intelligence community includes SIGINT—signals intelligence gathered from electronic communications, which falls under the NSA—the CIA’s original charter was rooted in HUMINT, human intelligence. In other words: people, not pixels. But instead of cultivating sources and analyzing foreign threats, the Agency veered off-course, seduced by covert action and regime manipulation. It didn’t just collect intelligence—it started making history in secret, often disastrously.

Even if some operations were technically “authorized” by senior military or executive officials, that’s hardly any exoneration. The CIA wasn’t created to serve as a covert war department. Its charter was intelligence—not intervention. The fact that presidents or Pentagon brass may have signed off on operations like staging false flags, sabotaging crops, or assassinating undesired leaders only underscores how far the national security apparatus had drifted from constitutional norms.

In drips of urgent exception and drabs of frightftul necessity, the Republic’s balance of power was quietly and unlawfully redefined.

Worse, the Agency appears to have been aimed inward, at Americans. The tools of foreign espionage—propaganda, psychological manipulation, surveillance—weren’t just deployed overseas. Increasingly, they were turned against the very citizens the Agency was created to protect. That’s not mission drift. That’s betrayal.

That’s treason.

Newly confirmed Director John Ratcliffe has pledged to return the Agency to its HUMINT roots. He has his work cut out for him. But the very fact such a recalibration has become necessary is both a rebuke of the agency’s long, inglorious era of lawless adventurism, as well as an implicit admission: the CIA has spent far too long doing the wrong job.

The CIA was never chartered to police Americans. It wasn’t meant to shape elections, set blackmail honeypots, manipulate narratives, or deploy psychological warfare. It wasn’t supposed to operate on U.S. soil. But when compromised oversight fails, and cancerous secrecy festers, the watchers stop ‘watching’ our enemies— and the tools meant for foreign enemies are turned inward. The Agency’s creeping mission swelled beyond surveillance into influencing, pressuring, blackmailing, and manipulating us.

Fiat veritas, ruat caelum.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Trump derangement —and now, Musk derangement— is reaching pathological levels. Yesterday, an Axios story ran under the headline, “‘They hate us’: Congressional Democrats confront their own furious Tea Party.” The article described the Democrat base’s record-low approval of their own party.

“Democratic members of Congress,” Axios reported, “have been encountering a level of anger and hostility that some see as reminiscent of the 2010 Tea Party wave.” An unidentified lawmaker said a voter in her district at a recent Town Hall furiously asked, “Democrats are too nice. Nice and civility doesn't work. Are you prepared for violence?”

Axios said the representative left the Town Hall “crying.” She tearfully and repetitively exclaimed, “They hate us! They hate us.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranked Democrat official in America, is in deep political doo-doo. By leading a ten-member team of Democrats who helped pass last week’s Republican Continuing Resolution, he has drawn the ire of the Democrat fever swamp. MSNBC ran an op-ed this morning headlined, “Chuck Schumer's capitulation to Trump is blowing up in his face.”

“An increasing number of liberal organizations,” the writer reported, “are calling on Schumer to either step down from his leadership position or to fight more aggressively.” They mocked Schumer’s February position, where he pledged to lie down on the train tracks to stop Republicans. Sneering Democrats pointed out that, when you lie down on the train tracks, you get run over by the train.

Chuckie, 74, has chosen. He chose fighting. This week he wisely postponed a scheduled book tour, instead —very sprightly for a 74-year-old— went on a damage-controlling media rampage, spewing violent rhetoric, which until ten minutes ago, was the worst thing ever.

In recent days, Schumer has called Republicans in Congress “fanatics,” “zealots,” and “vicious nihilists.”

Things are not well within the donkey party. The Boston Globe cheerlessly suggested, “If Chuck Schumer gets pushed out of Senate leadership, Elizabeth Warren should replace him.” NBC unsarcastically reported, and I am not making this up, “The Bidens want back in.”

Yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) tweeted a mild-mannered rebuke, in his usual affable style:

🔥 Rank-and-file Democrats, irritated with their leaders’ weak rhetoric and failures to call for duels on the House steps or horsewhip Republicans in the well of the Senate, began taking matters into their own hands.

The target of their blossoming ire was climate-friendly electric cars.

This week, KFOX-14 ran a story headlined, “2 arrested in Colorado Tesla attacks face federal charges for use of incendiary devices.” The article was darkly amusing. “Two men in Colorado face serious federal charges after a series of violent, destructive attacks on a Tesla dealership,” it began, naming “Cooper Jo Frederick, 24, and Lucy Grace Nelson, 42.” Here are the two men:

Lucy, above right, is a ‘transgender woman’ (biological male) who was arrested for spray-painting hateful Nazi symbols and obscenities onto a Tesla dealership. The cops found Lucy’s car was “packed with gasoline, Molotov cocktail materials, and wick material.”

That’s not very ladylike.

The two ‘men,’ and I use that term loosely (since KFOX did), were both charged with unnamed federal crimes. I assume that means domestic terrorism, which carries a five-year minimum upon conviction.

Blame Biden’s lawless lack of protestor prosecution for this epidemic of anti-electric rage. They are used to no-bail slaps on the wrist. But things are very different now. This isn’t Joe Biden’s DOJ.

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You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Yesterday, the BBC ran a highly encouraging story headlined, “Trump revoking protections for 530,000 Cubans, Haitians and other migrants.” Trump’s team is not slowing down for activist judges.

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday rebuked Biden’s so-called “parole” program, declaring that it had failed in its goals. The agency stated that Biden officials had “granted illegal immigrants opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers; forced career civil servants to promote the programs even when fraud was identified; and then blamed Republicans in Congress for the chaos that ensued and the crime that followed.”

DHS announced revoking the temporary “parole” status of more than half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. For now, some 240,000 paroled Ukrainians were exempted, and the agency said it will consider other exceptions on a “case-by-case basis.”

According to the notice posted by DHS, the immigrants were warned to leave the country before their permits and deportation shields are cancelled on April 24th. It wasn’t clear whether they would continue getting free plane tickets. Anyone who leaves voluntarily can re-apply later for permanent citizenship through the normal process. Otherwise, they will be banned.

You might recall that last month, DHS also announced it was ending another Biden immigration designation, “temporary protected status” (TPS), for a half-million Haitians camping in the US. Felines of America were unavailable for comment, since their owner was scratching them behind the ears right then.

No doubt, these DHS orders must not run the judicial gauntlet, but I expect Trump will win in the end. What Biden can order, Trump can un-order.

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Speaking of immigration, a Trump program not even finalized yet is already working. Financial Express ran the story under the headline, “US Commerce Secretary claims many takers for $5 million Gold Cards, says 1,000 sold in a day.”

It’s called “pent up demand.” Yesterday, on the ‘All-In Podcast,’ US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that he’d already sold 1,000 ‘gold cards’ at $5 million each. In other words, it’s five billion dollars of instant revenue that taxpayers won’t have to cough up, in exchange for only 1,000 new citizenships.

Compared to millions of immigrants swarming over the border for free under Biden, it’s not even Venezuelan apples to Columbian oranges. It’s diamonds to overripe avocados.

Not only that, but Lutnick told All-In that the Administration calculated there remains a market of at least 37 million more potential gold card customers, and expected we could easily sell a million of them. That allows plenty of room to be picky and choosy over exactly who gets to buy one.

In other words, we can afford to fastidiously grab only the best potential citizens, and still make out like bandits. In fact, this week Fox reported that “Trump vows to refund, deport any 'unsavory' immigrants who try for citizenship under potential 'gold card.’”

A million gold cards! That would generate enough revenue to pay off a chunk of the national debt, buy Greenland twice, and still have change left over for a space elevator. And needless to say, anyone who can afford a gold card is unlikely to be an unproductive, marxist welfare sinkhole.

It’s totally surreal that, in just a few short weeks, we are suddenly debating making money from immigrants instead of paying billions for them to be here. And this is only one of Trump’s economic plans.

Daring to hope against hope, it’s beginning to look like it might actually be possible to pay off the debt.

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How’s this story for surreal? In a highly Nazi-like, or possibly fascist fashion, Florida’s dictatorial Governor Ron DeSantis tried unsuccessfully for a year to return a trillion dollars in unwanted federal funds “because of the strings attached.” He repeatedly called Biden’s Governor Support hotline, and pressed ‘1,’ then ‘6’, then ‘5’, then pressed zero about twenty times but still couldn’t get the operator. One time he actually got a person, but they only spoke Nepalese and didn’t understand when Governor DeSantis shouted “we don’t WANT the money!” Then yesterday, the Governor met one time with Elon Musk and DOGE staff— and it was done. All arranged.

As far as I can tell, only Fox carried the astonishing story yesterday, headlined “DeSantis says Florida returned $878M in taxpayer funds to federal government after meeting with Musk, DOGE.”

We don’t need your stinking handouts.

It’s not just historic. It may be the first time a state has refunded nearly a billion dollars voluntarily after already receiving it, and doing so for ideological and bureaucratic reasons rather than legal necessity. That makes it both unprecedented and politically explosive.

🔥 Speaking of federal money with strings attached, the game can be played by both sides. Yesterday, the Hindustan Times ran a guffaw-provoking story headlined, “Columbia University agrees to ban masks on campus after $400M funding freeze by Donald Trump.” Haha, that wasn’t all had to agree. They were forced to concede a long list of woke nonsense.

Possibly the least significant concession was that Columbia must now ban face masks, except for legitimate health reasons. And anyone wearing a mask must present ID on demand.

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Speaking of surreal stories that provoke guffaws, Aljazeera ran one yesterday headlined, “Trump targets Biden, Harris in US security clearance purge.” It probably somehow makes me a bad person, but I LOLed through the whole thing.

Arrogantly labeling the move “part of a pattern of reprisals,” Alzajeera reported that President Trump signed an executive order yesterday revoking a bunch more security clearances— and starting with Joe Biden.

Now, you deplorables probably think that is common sense, since Joe Biden has the cognitive status of a medium-sized Mexican cucumber. But that is not how things are done in the Beltway. President Trump’s order (read the whole thing) also revoked Kamala’s clearance, and those of Hillary, Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Liz Cheney, Alexander Vindman, and a bunch of others— plus, just to make sure, “any other members of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s family.”

Corporate media thinks this is payback from when Biden revoked Trump’s security clearance in 2021. I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But it does seem fair.

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Trump latest executive order flipped the safety off the government’s lawfare defenses. The last of yesterday’s EO was titled, “ Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court.” Reuters ran the story under the headline, “Trump Asks Bondi to Scrutinize Lawyers Who Fight US in Courts.”

The order directed newly confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “review conduct” by lawyers and law firms who engage in “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation” against the US. “Accountability is especially important when misconduct by lawyers and law firms threatens our national security, homeland security, public safety, or election integrity,” Trump wrote in the memo.

In plain English, Trump’s new executive order wasn’t only about legal ethics—it declared open hunting season on the class of lawyers who turned suing the federal government into a cottage industry during the last eight years. Wrapped in language about “restoring the integrity of the legal system,” the EO ordered the Attorney General to dig through past litigation for signs of so-called abuse—“frivolous lawsuits,” “fraudulent practices,” or other conduct that could justify sanctions, disbarment, or even security clearance reviews.

That last part is the tell. By invoking security clearances, Trump escalated the lawfare activists to the level of a national security concern, thereby weaponizing the courts as a tool for striking back.

What makes this EO a watershed moment was the targeting direction. For years, the legal Left swamped federal dockets with activist litigation, much of it designed less to win cases so much as to delay, entangle, or extract headlines.

Until now, the consequences were mostly reserved for Trump’s own lawyers, who’ve been sued, disbarred, and encased in leftwing blowback like swarms of angry hornets. But this EO flipped the script: it formalized retroactive scrutiny of government critics under the banner of ethics enforcement, potentially banning them from federal courtrooms, stripping clearances, or canceling lucrative federal legal contracts.

It wasn’t just a memo—it was a message: if you wage lawfare against the government, you’d better be on all fours, or the government might litigate back.

🔥 This latest Executive Order was a large-scale, expanded version of a previous order that imposed clearance and contractual sanctions on firms involved in the RussiaGate hoax during Trump’s first term. That order has already borne fruit. This morning, The Hill ran the widely-reported story under the headline, Democrats, lawyers left reeling from Paul, Weiss firm’s Trump deal.

It only took 48 hours. On Wednesday, the Washington Post ran a hysterical op-ed titled, “Trump’s efforts to intimidate the legal profession cannot stand.” Two days later, the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison firm completely caved. For context, Paul Weiss lawyer Mark Pomerantz coordinated the Alvin Bragg “hush money” case against Trump.

Live by the sword of activism, die by the sword of activism. To get back into the government’s good graces, Paul Weiss wisely conceded that their now-former partner Pomerantz had behaved unethically. It also agreed to undergo outside audits of their hiring practices, to ensure DEI is completely pressure-washed from the firm. And it agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono (free) legal services to causes of the Administration’s concern. (Think defending the Proud Boys.)

During the early pandemic, I often observed how large law firms were completely AWOL from the legal fight to challenge Biden’s unconstitutional mandates, orders, school closures, and “health guidances.” For the first two years, only small firms like mine fought back to defend the Constitution. I frequently speculated the reason for BigLaw’s conspicuous absence was because it is beholden to government contracts— and thus hopelessly conflicted.

Now, the government contract chickens are coming home to roost. Two other big law firms targeted by Trump’s earlier EO, including Perkins Coie, the firm that managed RussiaGate for the Clintons, are still fighting their punishment. But the fight itself is part of the punishment.

And now, in his latest order, Trump has multiplied the same tactic that brought Paul Weiss to heel, extending it to the entire legal profession. Activism just got a whole lot harder, since law firms must now make completely sure their arguments are legally founded, and because previously consequence-free lawfare activism just acquired some risk.

The game is changing fast. Try to keep up.

Have a wonderful weekend! And swing back here on Monday morning, so we can together kick off another marvelous week in the First 100 Days.

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