Free Republic

Cabinet officials and senior staffers across the Trump administration are reclaiming power from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, a trend that began long before the billionaire’s relationship with President Donald Trump exploded in public acrimony days after Musk formally left his White House post.As Musk departed, some of his top lieutenants were streaming out of government. Among those heading for the exits even before Musk and Trump began feuding, according to a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information: longtime aide Steve Davis, who was overseeing cost-cutting efforts; lawyer James Burnham, DOGE’s general counsel;...

New procedures and requirements — some implemented in the name of improving operations — are slowing down federal agencies. Somewhere in the world last month, a State Department employee began the routine process of hiring a vendor for an upcoming embassy event — but quickly ran into a problem. The vendor was refusing to sign paperwork certifying that it did not promote diversity, equity and inclusion, or “DEI,” a new requirement under President Donald Trump’s executive order eradicating DEI from the government. The State employee — who spoke on the condition that neither he nor the location of his embassy...

Critics say the administration is breaking the law and sidestepping the rulemaking process that presidents of both parties have routinely followed.At the Transportation Department, enforcement of pipeline safety rules has plunged to unprecedented lows since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.Trump recently ordered Energy Department staff to stop enforcing water conservation standards for showerheads and other household appliances. And at one Labor Department division, his appointees have instructed employees to halt most work related to antidiscrimination laws.Across the government, the Trump administration is trying a new tactic for gutting federal rules and policies that the president dislikes: simply stop enforcing them.“The conscious...

Current and former officials say the crackdown is creating a climate of fear and harming national security.National security agencies across the Trump administration are ramping up investigations into alleged leaks to the news media, in some cases using polygraph tests that current and former officials say are creating a climate of fear and intimidation.At FBI Director Kash Patel’s direction, the bureau in recent weeks has begun administering polygraphs to identify the source of information leaks, an FBI spokesperson said. The new use of polygraphs at the bureau, which are commonly known as “lie detector” tests, has not been previously reported.“The...

A senior executive who objected was marched out of his office and put on leave, while earlier warnings about the agency’s deaths database were ignored... Greg Pearre, who oversaw a staff of hundreds of technology experts, had pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to move the migrants’ names into a Social Security death database, eliminating their ability to legally earn wages... ...on Thursday, the security guards in Pearre’s office told him it was time to leave.

Somewhere on a grocery shelf, or in a restaurant, or on a food-factory floor in America, lurk bacteria that haven’t been detected yet. Perhaps E. coli, which is linked with food poisoning, or more of the cronobacter that led to infant illnesses, sparked a nationwide shortage of infant formula in 2022 and led to major reforms at the Food and Drug Administration.The task of finding those bacteria rests on FDA inspectors, whose jobs have been mostly preserved amid the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal government. But the people who help support those inspections haven’t fared so well. More...

KINGSPORT, Tenn. - Matthew Hawn checked his phone to see if the wait was finally over. It had been five months since he was fired for teaching about White privilege at a high school in rural Tennessee. Two months since he had fought to regain his job at an emotional three-day hearing, becoming a symbol of the acrimonious debate over the way race, racism and history should be taught in America's schools. A lifelong resident of Kingsport, Hawn was well aware his liberal views made him an outlier in his overwhelmingly White, mostly conservative community. But that had never mattered...

When it comes to his sister, Curtis Ingraham doesn’t exactly hold back. Over the past year or so, Ingraham has won a reputation — and a significant Twitter following — for attacks on his high-profile sister, Fox News host Laura Ingraham. At different times and on a wide variety of platforms, he has called his sibling “a monster,” “a Nazi sympathizer” and a “racist.” But after the controversial pundit compared Greta Thunberg and other youth climate activists to Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn” on Monday night, Curtis Ingraham took things to the next level. “Clearly my sister’s paycheck is...