The weaponization of government was probably the hallmark of the administration of Joe Biden. OK, the weaponization of government and senile, incoherent ramblings were the hallmarks. While the senile ramblings are gone, the infrastructure of that weaponization remains fully entrenched in agencies across the federal government. President Donald Trump needs to remove any and everyone involved in the effort to not only use the power of government against him for political purposes, but against any American.
Weaponization of government is more than just filing bogus charges or creating new laws under which prosecutions can happen, it involves government creating flaming hoops through which Americans have to jump to open or expand a business, or simply do business with the government itself.
President Biden famously attached Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strings to nearly every government contract – hire this type of person, give to this cause or force your employees to participate in this or that “education” program and you will be deemed worthy of doing business with the very government you fund.
The Biden administration spent an astonishing $128 million on DEI promotion grants while allocating $42 billion to connect poor and rural Americans to high-speed internet access, but connected no one because no company could meet the standards for DEI they set. They took all the credit for “connecting Americans,” and none of the blame for making that connection impossible through their weaponization efforts.
The Federal Communications Commission now has good, new leadership, but it also has staff that helped implement “net neutrality” twice – the attempt to insert the federal government in the internet, which would naturally lead to taxes and more regulation. Most of all, it would have led to a much slower, worse internet.
The FCC under Barack Obama tried it, then it was undone under Donald Trump the first time. Then Obama II – Joe Biden – attempted to reinstate them, only to be struck down by the courts just before the start of the second Trump administration.
Anyone pivotal in both attempts, or even in just one of the attempts, should be reassigned, at the very minimum. The best way to mitigate disaster is to get rid of those responsible for it, as history has a habit of repeating itself.
At the Federal Trade Commission, President Trump has already started to delouse the place by firing the two Democrats on it. Why? Because the government needs a house-cleaning and good kick in the complacency.
The FTC was very activist-left under its old leadership, the Biden-appointed Lina Khan. The Washington Times described her tenure as having “poisoned the workplace environment and sabotaged its mission because of her reckless disregard for precedent.”
In what appears to be a nod to the abortion industry, the FTC sued an Idaho-based company called Kochava claiming they were “selling sensitive geolocation data that was being misused for political purposes.”
The Times reported, “According to the agency, which hasn’t helped matters by its failure to define what it means by ‘sensitive locations,’ the company has the potential to sell geolocation data to political operators around the country who use the data to market products and candidates and address political issues to people who have been shown to have visited Planned Parenthood facilities.”
“Even if these claims are factual, none of that is illegal,” reports the Times. “Still, Ms. Khan, as she has done many times before, does not shy away from a chance to expand the federal government’s ability to reach into the marketplace and control it. What makes this case a bit strange is that it’s been the Democrats who have made the best use of this kind of information.”
It’s good that she’s gone, it will be better when the remnants of her tenure and those “below the fold” who participated in her actions are wiped clean too. The best thing that the Trump administration can do now is to instruct his FTC to drop these types of weaponized litigation efforts to free companies from the Biden administration’s attacks.
Step out of line or fail to be sufficiently deferential to whatever the left-wing political whims are at any given moment and your career will be over. It’s weird to see the people taking to the streets claiming to care so deeply about bureaucrats fired by DOGE have no problem with the military men and women discharged for refusing to get a COVID shot, for example. COVID was another political flashpoint for the Biden administration and if you stepped out of line, be prepared to pay hefty legal fees.
In November 2022, the FTC falsely accused Precision Patient Outcomes, Inc. (PPO), a small, California-based company, of unlawfully marketing and selling a dietary supplement called “Covid Resist,” one which the company never sold. The agency’s lawsuit against PPO and CEO Margrett Lewis was terminated on February 15, 2024. In November 2021, a nasal spray maker Xlear was sued by Biden’s DoJ for “falsely” marketing its saline sprays as an effective way to prevent and treat COVID-19. This lawsuit contradicted the research that the Biden administration itself had produced. In 2020, the National Institutes of Health promoted a clinical trial that proved Xlear sprays helped with overcoming and preventing COVID infections.
Progressive activism metastasizes throughout any organization everywhere it is found. It has to be torn out, root and branch, in every little way. Yes, there are bigger and broader examples of this internal rot out there, but the Trump administration is pulling those out. These are a few examples of what needs to come next, and then after that there will be more; there will always be more.
There is no finish line in the fight against the left weaponizing our government against citizens, only a constant struggle to keep it at bay. It’s thankless work, but as long as we have a massive government trying to impose its will on Americans rather than leaving us alone, it’s some of the most important.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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