An Trump administration order freezing trillions of dollars in federal spending set off nationwide panic and chaos until a federal judge in Washington put a hold on its implementation pending a hearing on its legality on February 3.

Here’s how it all happened: The acting director of the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo on Monday “pausing” all federal grants and loans until at least February 10 to ensure they comply with Donald Trump’s worldview.

Written in MAGA-speak, the memo from Matthew Vaeth (who is running OMB pending confirmation of Trump nominee Russell Vought) demanded that a vast number of programs and services financed by the federal government come to a halt until it can be determined that they don’t promote “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.”

The “pause” said it would specifically exempt Social Security and Medicare payments and purports not to cover funds “provided directly to individuals.” Since a lot of federal low-income programs (notably Medicaid, which is where a fifth of the U.S. population obtains health care and/or nursing home assistance) benefit........

© Daily Intelligencer