Tag Archives: DOGE

economic news, national news

Musk, Trump testing our faith

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Elon Musk and his puppet, Donald Trump, are testing my faith in the U.S. Constitution’s ability to hold up to the full frontal assault these two nimrods are launching.

Yes, my faith is bending, but I believe — at least I hope — it is far from breaking.

Trump campaigned for the presidency vowing to leave veterans benefits and Social Security alone. He said he wouldn’t cut either program. Then he hauls Elon Musk aboard the clown car and Musk — the richest man on Earth — starts yammering about cuts in vets’ programs and calls Social Security a “ponzi scheme.”

OK, the disph** doesn’t know a ponzi scheme if it bit him in the ass. Social Security is a compact this government made in 1935 with elderly Americans to provide them with assistance to live in their retirement years.

We have paid into the system and as we seek to enjoy retirement from a lifetime of working hard, we are getting some of it back. What does Elon Musk know about any of that? Not a damn thing!

As for veterans benefits, for Donald J. Trump — the draft dodger in chief — to say a word about cutting benefits for those of us who did serve our country is merely adding unconscionable insult to unforgiveable injury.

Some of us are old enough to remember a time when Democratic leaders in Congress sought to monkey around with elderly benefits. In the 1980s, House Speaker Tip O’Neill and senior U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois got caught making untoward comments about Social Security. The outcry from the masses was so vigorous that they both backed down.

Musk and Trump should face an equal rage-filled response if they try to monkey around with old folks’ retirement and veterans’ pre-paid benefits.

national news

Does this oath even matter?

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Donald J. Trump took his presidential oath of office in January while doing something that wasn’t lost on me or millions of others: He did not put his hand on a Bible.

Thus, when he vowed to “defend and protect” the Constitution and the government under which the founders created, that must have given him some way out of sticking to the sacred oath presidents normally take.

That must be the only possible rationale he is applying as he and Elon Musk lay waste to the government he vowed to defend and protect.

The Trump vow to be his supporters’ “retribution” is playing out as he and Musk fire thousands of public servants, seeking to slash billions of dollars from the budget.

Trump now, I suppose, can look at himself in the mirror and say with an overfed straight face that he can do all this without violating any sacred oath. Good grief! The guy is without conscience, without any moral compass, without any sense of empathy or decency.

Why else would he bring Earth’s richest human being on board to do his dirty work? Musk has none of those aforementioned qualities, so he can issue orders from his DOGE platform. Indeed, Musk doesn’t even have to answer to voters, as he didn’t run for office. He’s a hired gun whose task is to be Trump’s hit man.

I wasn’t alert enough to expect this kind of blowback at the second Trump inaugural when I noticed that Trump didn’t put his hand on a Bible. The gesture likely meant nothing at all to a man with zero compassion for the lives he is grinding into the dirt.

local news

Love this service

I am going to sound like a self-righteous do-gooder with this brief blog post, so I’ll apologize in advance for anyone who takes it that way.

I deliver Meals on Wheels every Monday to about a dozen households in Princeton. It takes me a little more than an hour to deliver a hot meal, a bottle of milk and a dessert/snack to shut-ins.

It is truly a gratifying hour-plus I spend each week. Almost without exception these folks greet me with a smile and a good word. For many of them it is clear to me they don’t talk with anyone outside of immediate family. Many of them have timed my arrival, as it’s about the same each week. They open the door as I am walking to deliver the knock or ring the bell.

We engage in small talk. They wish me well. One sweet lady near the end of my route always instructs me to “be careful, darlin’.”

How in the world can one start your day any better than that?

And yet … here’s where the politics comes in. The Elon Musk/Donald Trump administration well might ponder a way to cut funding for thie program. I haven’t yet heard whether the Collin County branch of Meals on Wheels is in jeopardy. I only am left to hope that it somehow survives the draconian cuts that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is pondering.

Keep your grimy mitts off this valuable service we provide for those in need.

Uncategorized

Trump is POTUS? Hardly!

High Plains Blogger readers might recall that in 2016 I pledged never to post the word “President” directly in front of Donald Trump’s name.

My belief then was that he wasn’t my president. Not only did I vote against him, I considered him fundamentally unfit to hold the nation’s highest elected office. I still cling to that belief.

Six weeks into his second go-round as POTUS, the wisdom of that pledge is being brought into sharper focus. Only for a different reason.

He has taken office in the shadow of the world’s richest human being, Elon Musk. How in the world can this be? I can’t figure out how a publicity-seeking former reality TV mogul, real estate developer and huckster without equal can cede the spotlight to a tycoon who isn’t even eligible to run for president, as he was born in South Africa.

Americans didn’t elect Musk to anything. They elected Trump. However, Trump has turned budgeting authority over to Musk and his made-up Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE as it’s now known colloquially.

What’s more, he sits quietly while Musk takes Secretary of State Marco Rubio to task for not cutting enough from his State Department budget. Good grief! That isn’t Musk’s place! The authority to make such demands in public belongs exclusively to the president of the United States!

You see, Trump isn’t acting like the individual elected to the presidency. He has become the sidekick, the second banana, the guy riding shotgun in the clown car.

It is ridiculous and outrageous at the same time.

It also gives my pledge look all the more prescient.

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What does an ultra-rich guy know?

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Placing federal budget-slashing authority in the hands of the richest man on Earth is a prescription for disaster.

The billions of dollars that Elon Musk is slashing from, say, the Education Department, or USAID, or Medicaid is no sweat off the nose of Musk, who cannot relate in any fashion to the troubles faced by Mom and Pop, or the young family seeking to survive.

But here is, making decisions that determine whether kids have enough food to eat, or whether parents can send their children to college or whether to send money to help impoverished nations.

Musk doesn’t get any of that. For that matter, neither does the POTUS, who grew up in a privileged household and was given millions by his father to chart his own business course. Donald Trump’s business record has been, shall we say, a mixed bag.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is designed to make government less bloated. I actually endorse what sounds like a noble idea. However, slashing and burning federal departments while depriving “normal” Americans of services they have grown to expect carries the strong hint of arrogance … and ignorance into how much regular folks depend on that service.

Elon Musk doesn’t get it … not at all!

national news

Arrogance rules at DOGE

There is an undeniable aura of arrogance at play when I watch Earth’s richest man make decisions that have a direct impact on ordinary Americans’ lives.

Elon Musk has taken his seat near the center of power in Washington, D.C., handing out orders to fire thousands of dedicated public servants. He sends them to the unemployment line not knowing if they will be able to buy groceries for the dinner table, pay for a child’s college tuition or just meet the financial requirements we all face as we go about living our lives.

What does Elon Musk know about any of that? Not a damn thing!

He’s worth something just south of a trillion bucks these days. Yet there he struts as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, slashing payrolls and denying Americans the chance to advance in careers they chose to pursue.

Donald Trump says Musk and his DOGE goons are hellbent to make government smaller and less corrupt. It is beyond absurd to realize that the administration has fired many of the inspectors general who are trained to root out the kind of corruption Trump insists is present in many government agencies. The DOGE gang is now relying on 20-something interns to do the work formerly done by trained professional government watchdogs.

This is making government “more efficient?” Hardly.

What we have here is an oligarch running amok … with the blessing of a POTUS who’s been impeached twice and convicted of 34 felonies. Oh, brother.

national news

Conservatism turned upside-down

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As I watch Donald Trump and his No. 1 suck-up Elon Musk, I am wondering how it is that the new administration can possibly describe itself as “conservative.”

The budget strategies being developed by Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency is slated to increase the national debt by $4 trillion. Yep, that’s “trillion” with a “t.”

DOGE members also are boasting about how they’re acquiring power normally reserved for members of Congress. Roll that around for just a second, ’cause that’s all it’ll take. Conservatives used to rail, rant and rage over consolidation of power. Now? Why, it’s cool, if you buy into the MAGA morons’ world view.

Conservatives formerly fought for the need to reduce the size of the federal government. DOGErs say they intend to reduce government’s size by putting millions of Americans out of work through layoffs, buyouts and firings. They are stretching the rules of legality by firing federal employees for — and this is rich — doing their jobs!

None of this is “conservative government” as I have long understood its meaning and application. It’s the reverse, for criminy sakes!

But … the MAGA goons who govern us now don’t know or care that they are redefining our government structure into something none of us recognizes.

Think of it as the ultimate conflation of ignorance and apathy.