500 Pink Slips
The way President Donald Trump's administration started sprinting out of the gate, this phrase shouldn't be as surprising as it is: Acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Kari Lake, sent shockwaves through Washington by announcing more than 500 layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) and its parent agency.
Acting with predictable speed, the media quickly screamed authoritarian overreach, attorneys filed lawsuits before the echoes of Lake's voice had even drifted silent, and teleprompter readers and hired experts were ready to call the cuts reckless and dangerous.
A group of agency employees who sued to block VOA’s elimination said Lake’s move would give their colleagues 30 days until their pay and benefits end.
“We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement. “We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far, we have not seen any evidence of that.”
However, if we were to step back, we'd see that what's happening isn't chaos, it's house cleaning. For years, the VOA had grown into a comfortable, taxpayer-funded bureaucracy that defied explanation. Designed for the Cold War, the Voice of America broadcast Western messages into the Soviet bloc.
Global news is now available at the touch of a smartphone, reducing VOA's strategic value to nil. What used to be a necessity is looking more like an aging relic of Washington's growth addiction.
Fortunately for us, Trump sees it for what it is, while streamlining his branch of government using the constitutional authority given to every president.
The Media’s Double Standard
The left's favorite words since Trump was sworn in have been tyrant, despot, and, of course, fascist. When President Joe Biden's autopen held office, it exercised executive power constantly, making the decisions Trump is undoing now.
The Biden administration has stuffed new bureaucrats into agencies, creating coordinators and task forces, and establishing entire offices for climate czars, gender liaisons, and DEI enforcers. While these expansions were never referred to as overreach, they were presented as modernization, progress, or a means to achieve equity.
When Trump prunes instead of plants, the media goes DEFCON 1, describing the heroism of government workers and how downsizing guts democracy.
It's the same presidential power, directing the executive branch's machinery, but spun in completely different directions.
It's impressive to see the bias on display when Biden fed the weeds, while the media shrugs. Trump pulls their roots out, and the press goes to the mattresses.
Cleaning Out the Stables
Hercules had his Augean stables; Trump has the swamp.
The swamp wasn't created overnight, and the only way to clear it is to find somebody willing to hold the high-pressure hose, letting the filth spray on him as it disappears down the drain.
Many agencies, such as the VOA, served a vital purpose, but over time, they became slow, bloated, and self-serving. Instead of transmitting America's voice overseas, the Voice of America grew into another Washington echo chamber.
Not only did Biden address this overgrowth, but he also ignored it. Like weeds in my garden, new offices and coordinators sprouted, growing the federal government so quickly it felt heavier, slower, and more detached from the people it was supposed to serve.
Until the noise Trump's action creates, many Americans will never hear a VOA broadcast or find its offices, yet the people happily foot the bill.
Isn't that the key point? VOA is a bureaucracy that consumes resources, not just money, but pulls resources away from the American people who need them.
While Biden's bureaucratic infestation evolved into quiet theft, Trump loudly reminded everybody that government is not supposed to serve itself, but its people.
The Legal Theater
As you read this, critics will be breaking speed records as they rush to the courts, judges stepping in to protect VOA managers from termination, and advocacy groups filing motions.
What's true is that Biden padded the bureaucracy in the same way Trump is shrinking it. Lake's announcement came one day after a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, ruled against the administration.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ruled separately that the Republican administration had failed to show how it was complying with his orders to restore VOA’s operations. His order (on) Monday gave the administration “one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial” to demonstrate its compliance. He ordered Lake to sit for a deposition by lawyers for agency employees by Sept. 15.
As flawed as the men who wrote our Constitution were, they accurately predicted future temper tantrums when assigning executive power to the president to direct his agencies. Unambiguously, the Constitution created three equal branches, preventing the judicial branch from doing nothing but referee procedure, and nothing changes that fact.
If any still exist, outstanding civics teachers in the U.S. should be paying attention to what's going on now!
Remember "Teachable moments?" Significant teachable moments are occurring each time we start up our laptops. If the major networks employ sports experts who break down players, games, and statistics so we can understand what's happening, why in the bloody hell wouldn't they provide the same analysis for something fundamental?
Whew! I'm better now. I don't know what came over me.
Final Thoughts
There's a single truth echoing over the uproar from the VOA cuts that the Left, MSM, and academia never grasps: President Trump is cleaning house in Washington after Biden expanded the government without shame, and the media applauded quietly.
Any gardener will explain that pruning isn't destruction, it's discipline, hurting in the moment yet saving the tree.
Washington D.C. has allowed itself to grow complacent: It's become fat, slow, and incredibly self-indulgent.
Tell me if you've heard this before.
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