☕️ TRUST ME ☙ Thursday, February 27, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Americans trust Trump more than media; WaPo supports freedom and libs don't like it; jab injury Overton shift; military trans wars flame back up; Trump expands DOGE; MAHA order for hospitals; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Thursday! There’s lots of stuff in today’s action-packed roundup: media polling straight down towards Hades; WaPo stands up for personal liberties and libs see democracy dying; Overton window shifting in Daily Mail jab coverage; trans wars heat up again in military; Supreme Court brakes Trump TROs; new executive order balloons DOGE powers—again; Republicans aim at woke universities with endowment taxes; and executive MAHA order will finally require hospitals to publish real price info.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Sad! They say that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging. Media is not only still digging, it’s maniacally driving one of Elon Musk’s robotic tunnel-boring machines— straight down. YouGov ran a survey story this week with bad news for corporate media. The poll’s headline said, “More Americans trust the Trump administration than trust the media for fair, full, and accurate facts.” Ruh-roh.

In other words, out of U.S. adults surveyed, 44% said they trusted Trump a great deal or a fair amount, compared to only 28% with similar warm feelings for the media. Only 11% of Democrats trusted President Trump to tell the truth, which might actually be higher than I would have guessed. Republicans were not so miserly with the media, with 21% allowing that they trusted it to state the facts fully, accurately, and fairly.

But those media-trusting Republicans were confused; does ‘media’ include NewsMax?

Trump’s trust rating with independents and Republicans has steadily increased since the election. A similar poll in mid-November showed Trump about even with the media in reported trust. Since then, trust in Trump has surged, and trust in media has slid. Their Trump Derangement Syndrome, having finally gone dormant during the stupifying Biden era, has now come raging back, with sores and pus and who knows what else.

The shift is especially delicious because it’s happening despite non-stop, wall-to-wall negative Trump coverage.

The entire modern media-industrial complex is built on the assumption that media controls the narrative. If a majority of Americans trust Trump more than the media itself, that’s an apocalyptic development for the Fourth Estate. The media’s TDS is repulsive and obvious, and their polling proves it.

Do you think the media will try to fix it, or double down?

🔥 In related news, the BBC ran a hyperventilating story yesterday headlined, “Bezos focuses Washington Post opinion pages on free markets and liberties.” Amazon kingpin and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced yesterday that the newspaper's opinion section will now focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets,” and pieces opposing those views will not be published.

WaPo’s opinion editor David Shipley immediately resigned.

In a tweet announcing the new policy on X, Bezos promised, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defence of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” The libs of BlueSky immediately smelled fascism. The irony of finding fascism in “defence of personal liberties and free markets” was completely lost on them. Weird.

Unlike the libs of BlueSky and the WaPo’s editorial team, Jeff Bezos is reading the room. We are watching the Twitterization of the Washington Post. Give him credit for trying to turn around the trust deficit.

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Something has changed in the Daily Mail’s jab reporting. It ran two more vaccine injury stories in the last 24 hours. The first article is a story that we discussed in C&C two years ago (in 2023)— Megyn Kelly’s red-pill moment, after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder that her doctors said was from the shots. Here’s this morning’s Mail headline about old news:

Yesterday, the Mail ran an even more salacious headline, becoming, so far as I know, the first major media platform to blend vaccine injury into customary media health-risk scaremongering. Except instead of terrifying readers with the dangers of metal bra clasps, behold: your possible risk from vaccines:

That headline, and everything it implies, is the covid-industrial-complex’s worst nightmare. The last thing they want people wondering is whether their chronic health problems might have come from taking a vaccine for a mild cold virus. Worse, the article started suggesting symptoms that might be related to shot damage, including generalized things like brain fog and insomnia.

If folks start wondering whether their chronic health issues, even mild ones, came out of a jab, the next thing they will think about —as we have— is vaccine liability immunity. They’ll realize they have no recourse. Next after that is bottled-up fury. Pressurize anger.

It’s true that the Daily Mail is only perhaps one step above the British version of a tabloid. (e.g., “I Accidentally Had Sex With My In-vitro Brother Thanks to Crooked Fertility Doc.”) It’s also true the same intrepid health reporter penned both stories, Emily Stearns. She’s on a roll, isn’t she?

It seems to me the most significant implication arising from the bare fact the Daily Mail is regularly running stories that shade the vaccines — nothing bad is happening. The FBI isn’t raiding the editor’s house at 2am every other Thursday and euthanizing her pet chipmunk. The Mail hasn’t received a notice from the Bureau of the Exchequer advising of a pending review of their 1976 tax returns (please bring all receipts). Severed horse heads aren’t suddenly appearing under the reporter’s bed linens.

Is the Daily Mail the canary in the mRNA mine? With a flock of other canaries perched right outside, waiting to see whether Canary Numero Uno survives? What happens when other second-tier platforms, equally eager for clicks, see the Daily Mail getting away with it? There are tens of thousands of heart-wrenching vaccine injury stories waiting to be told. If not millions. And all of those stories include a disquieting common element: the government gaslit and abused us.

The needle of justice jabs slowly, but it eventually reaches the target. Or words to that effect. Something about ‘wheels.’

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Prepare for shrieks of horror and the noisy descent of a murder of legal crows. ABC ran a story yesterday headlined, “Transgender US service members will be separated from military, Pentagon memo says.” The sub-headline added, “All service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria to be discharged by June 25.”

The new policy was included as an exhibit in the pending federal case Talbott v. Trump, a federal lawsuit challenging President Trump's January 27th executive order reversing the Biden policy allowing transgender service members in the military. This will greatly simplify the quartermaster’s job, since he can stop ordering womens’ uniforms in big and tall sizes. No more size 14 spike heels in camoflage colors.

The military’s rationale is clear and common-sense: gender dysphoria is a diagnosed mental disorder, and mental disorders disqualify service members from enlistment or continued duty. Here’s the relevant language from the memo:

The legal question of whether the President can remove transgendered people from military service was extensively litigated during Trump’s first term, with left-leaning courts issuing multiple injunctions shutting the ban down. But in January, 2019, the Supreme Court allowed Trump’s first ban to take effect while the litigation played out. NPR:

In his first week in office, Biden reversed Trump’s transgender ban, and all the pending cases were dismissed as moot. Here we go again! But it’s safe to assume that, this time, Trump’s lawyers will refer courts to that January, 2019 Supreme Court decision to defeat new injunctions.

So … now do the intelligence agencies. How can someone with gender dysphoria, a mental illness, hold a top-secret classification?

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Yesterday, the BBC ran a very encouraging story headlined, “Trump foreign aid freeze to stay for now, US Supreme Court chief rules.” Brand-new US District Judge Amir Ali, 39, the country’s first Muslim-Canadian federal judge (dual citizen), had issued a TRO ordering President Trump to release about $2 billion worth of frozen payments to USAID regime-change contractors by midnight on Wednesday. They thought Ethiopian LGBTQ+ puppet shows were back on the billings. But no.

As yesterday’s midnight deadline approached, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing it would be impossible to process claims in any orderly fashion in such a short period of time. The Court responded promptly. Chief Justice Robert’s short order said Judge Ali’s commands to unfreeze USAID were “stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court.”

A couple legal points are worth noting. First, the Trump team first tried to appeal to the DC Circuit, which refused to hear the issue. So this Supreme Court slapdown is even more humiliating to the DC Circuit than to Judge Ali, assuming the Circuit is capable of embarrassment at this point. Second, the USAID payments sit at the intersection of peak Executive Power, since the President controls not just the Executive Branch, but has sole authority over foreign relations.

The primary plaintiff, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, was probably picked because it (allegedly) relates to AIDS, a scary subject that makes for a good sound bite. But it might not have been the best pick. The Coalition’s most recent non-profit disclosure form (called a ‘990’), shows that out of a $14 million taxpayer-funded budget, over $9 million paid the salaries and expenses of the Coalition’s managers and employees. In other words, it’s ripe for an audit.

But Justice Robert’s order was possibly even better. Its second sentence set a deadline for responses by tomorrow at noon. Which means the Supreme Court is taking hold of the case. They’re not risking Judge Ali issuing any more diktats inviting a Constitutional showdown.

Thus, thanks to Judge Ali’s wild overreach, this case has all the makings of a landmark ruling on executive power. If the Court goes beyond just issuing a temporary stay—perhaps delivering a definitive smackdown—it could set precedent limiting future attempts by activist judges to hijack executive policy through the courts. Given that tomorrow’s deadline suggests an expedited review, we might not have to wait long to see how this plays out.

I told you about those TROs.

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Following his first full, public cabinet meeting yesterday, President Trump issued a new executive order, the latest in a string of near-daily fusillade of political missile strikes, this one titled, “Implementing the President's "Department of Government Efficiency" Cost Efficiency Initiative.” It was a bureaucratic neutron bomb. The far-left UK Guardian ran the story under the headline, “Trump signs executive order expanding power of Elon Musk’s Doge agency.”

A well-known problem plaguing the federal disbursement apparatus is that most of the work is done by career bureaucrats deep in the shadowy federal skunkworks. When a new president appoints some reformer to run a particular agency, if that person doesn’t know what to look for, well, good luck fine-tuning the accountability apparatus.

It was a very detailed order. The most significant part of the executive order was creation of a new centralized payment justification system, which introduced a brand new level of oversight and transparency into federal spending. Every single expense must be entered into the centralized system, along with a written rationale for its payment. These expenses and explanations will be publicly accessible.

And it gave politically appointed agency heads power to halt any expense having an insufficient rationale or that is inconsistent with the Administration’s priorities.

In other words, it creates a powerful discretionary veto over otherwise “routine” spending decisions normally processed deep in the federal bureaucracy. Agency heads, handpicked by Trump, can put the kibosh on any payments they dislike.

Imagine, for example, what kind of scrutiny might apply to payments to the World Economic Forum, or to leftist think tanks in DC.

The implications are potentially vast. It transforms agency heads’ illusory de jure authority into real de facto authority over their assigned agencies. By shining a public spotlight on expenses, the bureaucracy will become more risk-averse —much less prone to profligate spending— since it knows there could be political blowback for a particular grant or purchase. The order requires expense justifications to be publicly posted “to the maximum extent permitted by law.”

There’s even more good stuff buried in the dense text of the order. It places new restrictions on non-essential travel, requiring federal workers to justify conference trips and reimbursements. It freezes all government-issued credit cards for 30 days (with certain exceptions). It requires agencies to look for ways to break fruitless leases, and to make plans for shedding unneeded real estate. It requires all Agency heads to review current contracts and grants and look for ways to terminate or renegotiate them to save money.

The days of easy federal money are over. This is a new era of bureaucratic Darwinism, where only the most politically adaptable, strategically compliant, and administratively savvy swamp creatures will survive. Swamp dwellers who live off federal government largesse are about to face some serious new challenges in their chosen profession. Grant grabbing and contract chasing just became a whole new survival-of-the-fittest world.

Perhaps most interesting was a specific command for agencies to focus on contracts involving educational institutions and foreign entities for “waste, fraud, and abuse.” One presumes that DOGE has already identified these categories for special treatment.

It looks like universities —the intellectual arm of the administrative state— will soon learn a lesson from decades of opposing conservative reforms. They are about to attend a crash course in “FAFO 101.” It’s a mandatory, no-credits training course.

🔥 Along those lines, buried in this month’s news was a remarkable little nugget. The Harvard Crimson reported the story under the headline, “Republicans Are Floating Plans To Raise the Endowment Tax.” Big universities sit smugly behind vast, multi-billion-dollar ‘endowments,’ which are only taxed at a paltry 1.4%. They weren’t even taxed at all before Trump’s first term.

But earlier this month, Trump ally Representative Mike V. Lawler (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill to raise the endowment tax to 10%. That number could change as the bill moves through the legislative process. Some Republicans have mentioned tax rates as high as 35% — the same “fair” tax rate everyone else pays.

Lawler’s bill makes for the second such bill introduced in the current session.

This endowment tax proposal isn’t just about revenue—it’s a direct shot at the left’s ideological fortress. For decades, elite universities have functioned as protected political laboratories, insulated by billions in tax-free wealth, all the while pushing radical social policies, churning out activist bureaucrats, harboring failed democrat politicians and disgraced media personalities, and weaponizing DEI dogma against their own students and faculty. Now, their financial immunity faces a real threat.

In a 2023 campaign video, President Trump promised to start a new free online university for Americans— funded by taxing private University endowments. He specifically called out the protests at Harvard. Those protests eventually led to the resignation of Harvard’s super-diverse then-president Claudia Gay, with a little help from Christopher Rufo, who exposed Gay’s serial academic plagiarism.

Don’t overlook the awful threat posed by Trump’s campaign promise. Trump’s tying the tax increase to a free online university is political genius. First, the narrative is golden. Instead of “punishing” Harvard and its peers, the GOP can frame it as redistributing the wealth of elite billionaires from pampered Harvard students to low-income Americans.

Second, a free, fully credentialed online university—funded by an Ivy League endowment tax—would signal a tectonic shift in higher education. It would break the academic cartel’s grip by offering a competitive alternative that isn’t dominated by leftist gatekeepers and Marxist claptrap. Universities would have to start justifying their astronomical tuition prices if students can get a serious education elsewhere.

They could even call it, Trump University. Just saying.

I think the Republicans are serious about it. The loony, woke chickens are returning to their endowment roosts.

🔥 That wasn’t all. Finally, on Tuesday, President Trump signed another executive order titled, “Making America Healthy Again by Empowering Patients with Clear, Accurate, and Actionable Healthcare Pricing Information.” In 2019, Trump ordered that hospitals publish prices for all medical treatments they offer. The new requirement was supposed to become effective in 2021, but (of course) the Biden Administration didn’t enforce it, with predictable results of widespread non-compliance.

In his new order, Trump reinforced the message. This time, I mean it. The order requires Departments of Treasury (the money machine), Labor, and HHS to “take all necessary and appropriate action to rapidly implement and enforce the healthcare price transparency regulations … within 90 days of the date of this order.”

This order clarified that hospitals must publish “the actual prices of items and services, not estimates,” deleting a loophole left open by the first order. The agencies are directed to ensure “pricing information is standardized and easily comparable across hospitals and health plans.” And they are to propose “regulatory actions” designed to ensure compliance with the order and “complete, accurate, and meaningful data.”

Hospitals, insurers, and pharmaceutical companies have spent decades perfecting a Byzantine system designed to prevent patients from finding out what anything actually costs—because if they knew, they’d shop around.

My libertarian streak feels uncomfortable with some of the implications. Under normal circumstances, any government intervention in pricing sounds nightmarish. What would Ayn Rand say? But hospitals and insurance companies aren’t free-market entities—they’re government-subsidized, government-protected monopolies.

More importantly, hospitals and insurance companies made their bed during covid. They refused to tell us how much covid treatment cost when that information was critically important. They built a bureaucratic system that locks out competition, exploits price secrecy, and relies on taxpayer money through Medicare and Medicaid. If they want to act like government entities, then they get to play by government rules.

Lie down with dogs, get up with orders forcing you to tell people how much your services actually cost.

The truth is that publishing transparent pricing is the last thing hospitals want to do. But, given the sorry state of American medicine, it is the best way to quickly drive down healthcare costs. Hospitals made their gurney, and now they have to lay in it. Just like the rest of us.

Have a tremendous Thursday! Come back tomorrow morning for another serving of delicious, all natural, MAHA-approved Coffee & Covid.

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