As you’ve no doubt seen the White House attempt to institute an illegal, unilateral government shutdown in the form of freezing all federal government grants, loans and financial assistance collapsed this afternoon when the Office of Personnel Management rescinded the ‘memo’ on which the attempt was based. It’s a major defeat – technically, a faceplant – for the White House just over a week into the presidency. Trying to recover from the embarrassment White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted on Twitter that the freeze is on-going on the basis of the earlier executive orders targeting ‘wokeness’ which indefinitely froze funding of things like cancer research and foreign aid. Those comments were apparently part of what got a judge this afternoon to grant a restraining order since the White House has left unclear what it is and is not currently freezing.
