PrairiePundit

 Washington Free Beacon: The State Department has eliminated $214 million in foreign funding initiatives, nixing 139 taxpayer-funded grants that promoted, among other things, "newsroom sustainability" in Moldova, "media diversity" in the United Kingdom, and "environmental resilience" in Armenia, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. DOGE carried out the "supplemental review of remaining foreign assistance grant programs" after the State Department completed its initial foreign funding review in late February, an internal State Department memo obtained by the Free Beacon shows. Though the initial review saw the agency identify $60 billion worth of foreign grants for elimination , DOGE's supplemental probe revealed "a significant number of grant programs which remain inconsistent with Administration policies," particularly those related to "media advocacy programming," according to the memo. Axed grants include a $14.6 mil...

 American Action News: The Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) Elon Musk said Thursday on Fox News that the group found the federal government spent almost $1 billion on a survey that could’ve only cost thousands. Following President Donald Trump entering office in January, his administration pushed for Musk and DOGE to comb through the government’s spending and identify potential cuts to save taxpayer dollars. On “Special Report with Bret Baier,” the Fox News host sat with Musk and his DOGE team and asked the billionaire what has been the most “astonishing thing” he’s witnessed so far in this process. “The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government,” Musk said. “It is astonishing. It’s mind-blowing. We routinely encounter waste of a billion dollars or more, casually.” “For example, like the simple survey that was literally [a] 10 questions survey. You could do it with SurveyMonkey, [which] would cost about $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billi...

 PJ Media: Liberals are in full-blown panic mode over President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Democrats in Congress are hysterically crying “constitutional crisis,” while unhinged activists are lashing out at Tesla vehicles and showrooms—all because Elon Musk dares to support cutting government waste. Conservatives have long suspected there’s a deeper reason why the left goes berserk over efforts to rein in reckless spending. Now, the New York Times has accidentally said the quiet part out loud—the left’s political machine is fueled by your tax dollars. ... In a stunning admission, the Times  wrote : Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked. Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left...

 American Action News: Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dodged answering if Democrats could have “done more” to cut wasteful government spending under the Biden-Harris administration Sunday on NBC News. House Republicans took the first step Tuesday to advance President Donald Trump’s first-year legislative agenda with their budget bill, approving up to $4.5 trillion in deficit increases to push for Trump’s goal of cutting between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in spending. On “Meet the Press,” NBC host Kristen Welker pointed out the budget bill, mentioning Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson had talked about cutting wasteful spending and that Medicare and Medicaid made billions in spending errors in 2023. “Let me ask you, Senator Democrats were in charge for four years. Should the Democratic Party have done more to address some of those issues with the insolvency of our entitlement programs?” Welker asked. “And Trump was in power four years before that,” Sanders responded....

 Blaze: As the Department of Government Efficiency continues exposing waste and fraud in Washington, the revelations about the United States Agency for International Development have drawn the most attention. While USAID’s waste is staggering, many conservatives aren’t surprised. They long suspected that a massive portion of federal revenue was being spent unnecessarily on initiatives that serve no real purpose. The real scandal isn’t just USAID’s graft — it’s the reaction to it , particularly from Democrats . While moderates and conservatives were outraged at the depth of corruption, establishment leftists didn’t dismiss the findings as a “nothingburger.” They didn’t even attempt to defend USAID by highlighting its legitimate contributions to national interests. Instead, they claimed that any attempt to reform or defund USAID was an “ attack on democracy .” ... Regardless of USAID’s intent, these expenditures expose why Americans should be outraged — and why the agency needs to be...

 Just the News: Despite a string of headlines suggesting that the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its efforts to slash federal waste is hurting President Trump in the polls, the public appears at odds with the media over its perception of the department and on Trump’s first month more broadly. Legacy media has vilified Musk in recent weeks, zeroing in on his oversight of USAID and the Treasury Department’s payment systems to pronounce the imminent end of major entitlements. Others have pointed to the price of eggs and inflation as the administration works to improve the economy. “Trump pledged to bring down food prices on Day One. Instead, eggs are getting more expensive,” read a CNN headline . “Will the backlash to Elon Musk hurt Republicans?” asked Vox . “Musk and DOGE underwater with some voters in recent polling,” Axios reported . Despite the gloomy headlines, polling from legacy polling outlets and upstarts alike seems to show the public more su...

Fox News: The left-wing groups backing the anti-DOGE protests across the country have been funding a variety of progressive causes in recent years, including defunding the police, pushing socialism, anti-Israel protests and opposing President Donald Trump’s agenda in general. In a press release earlier this month, MoveOn.org announced that it was mobilizing resources as part of a "Congress Works for Us, Not Musk" initiative "aimed at pressuring lawmakers to fight back against the Trump-Musk agenda." MoveOn.org has taken millions of dollars from George Soros and his Open Society Policy Center in recent years. Soros is one of the most prominent backers in the United States of left-wing issues, including backing progressive district attorneys that set out to "reimagine policing" in the United States. Additionally, Fox News Digital has previously reported on the Soros network's ties to the anti-Israel protests that swept the country on college campuses ...

 DC Daily Journal: ... In a major victory for government accountability, a federal judge in Washington on Friday denied a desperate attempt by unions and Left-wing nonprofits to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing critical records from three federal agencies. The unions, backed by the usual activist crowd, tried to stop DOGE from obtaining records from the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — agencies long known for their bloated bureaucracies and cozy ties to Democrat power players. ... U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, sided with the government’s classification of DOGE as a federal agency, allowing it to deploy its staff to other departments to root out waste. But Bates acknowledged the government’s shifting stance, calling it a “close question” and noting the hypocrisy of Democrats’ legal arguments. While the government wanted DOGE to count as an agency to...

 American Action News Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly moving to gut billions of dollars from the Pentagon’s budget, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Department of Defense (DOD) Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote to senior Pentagon leadership Tuesday that he wanted an 8% reduction in the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. Hegseth directed leaders to deliver a plan for the budget cuts by Feb. 24, citing wasteful spending and “bureaucracy” as part of the reasons for the cuts. The move comes as the defense budget has ballooned to $850 billion, according to the DOD. “President Trump’s charge to DOD is clear: achieve Peace through Strength,” Hegseth reportedly said in the memo. “The time for preparation is over — we must act urgently to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence. Our budget will resource the fighting force we need, cease unnecessary defense spending, reject exc...

 Wall Street Journal: Trump Weighs Direct Payments to Americans From DOGE Savings President says he is considering giving to the public 20% of the savings from DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts President Trump said he is considering using a portion of the savings from Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative to provide direct payments to Americans. “We’re thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens and 20% down to pay back debt,” Trump said at the FII Priority summit, a gathering of business and tech executives sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund. “If it were a real-estate balance sheet, the debt is tiny, but we still, we still want to pay it down.” ... This sounds like a good deal for US taxpayers if it works.  Musk's cost-cutting plan exposes how much the current system costs Americans. See also: PoliticsJUST IN: Judge Chutkan Sides With DOGE, Smacks Down Democrat States  A federal judge handed Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)...

 American Action News: George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Monday the Democrats are the ones threatening democracy through their efforts to stop President Donald Trump from shrinking the size of the federal government and eliminating wasteful spending. Congressional Democrats and liberal activists have continued to rage over Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk’s efforts to cut the federal government’s billions of dollars in wasteful spending and carry out mass layoffs to make agencies more efficient. Turley said the Democrats are attempting to stop Trump from upholding his promises to the American people in the name of democracy, when in actuality, their legal efforts are the true threat to Democratic institutions. “What’s interesting about the protests of many of these members is that a lot of these voices were the same ones in the name of democracy that wanted to prevent voters from voting for Donald Trump, who ultimatel...

Blaze:   DOGE finds Treasury spent up to $4.7 TRILLION in untraceable payments ... The DOGE explained in a post on X that the Treasury Department uses an "identification code" to link its payments to budget line items. However, it discovered that this tracking code was optional for approximately $4.7 trillion in expenses and was often left blank, rendering the funds nearly impossible to trace. "The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process)," the DOGE wrote. "In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible. As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going." According to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, TAS described "any one of the account identification codes assigned by Treasury....

 PJ Media: ... A recent focus group composed of Arizona swing voters, including those who previously backed Joe Biden, revealed a striking consensus on this issue: they overwhelmingly approve of Trump's agenda and Elon Musk’s efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to make government more efficient. “Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump's actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk's efforts to slash government,”  reports  Axios. Every. Single. One. This shift signals a significant change in public sentiment, particularly in key battleground states, which suggests that Trump's actions resonate with a demographic that Democrats often underestimate. ... I find it more than strange that anyone would oppose increasing government efficiency.  Doing so should not only save tax dollars but also make the government better.  See also: Report: DOGE Lays Off 3,600 Prob...

DC Daily Journal: Since taking office, Trump has already signed at least 63 executive orders in just a few weeks, including 26 on his first day alone. His orders reflect a decisive shift toward his “America First” agenda — cutting government waste, reinstating protections for women’s sports, and deporting thousands of illegal immigrants who entered under Biden’s policies. One of the biggest targets of Democratic outrage is Trump’s creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is now investigating wasteful spending, corruption, and financial mismanagement across federal agencies. The move has sparked fierce opposition, with Left-wing officials scrambling to challenge the administration in court. Determined to resist Trump’s policies at every turn, a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general and local officials vowed to wage a legal war against the administration. But their battle isn’t limited to the courtroom — top Democrats have made it clear they’re taking t...