DOGE

[Jasmine]

Hey Jasmine, how does any of that stuff affect your personal freedoms?

Well, let’s say we shrink the federal government by lots, and so I get to keep more of my work income. Let’s say I get $5,000 more in my pocket. That would give me the freedom to buy a lot of things and travel to many places.

[GoCubsGo]

Hey Jasmine, how does any of that stuff affect your personal freedoms?

Well, let’s say we shrink the federal government by lots, and so I get to keep more of my work income. Let’s say I get $5,000 more in my pocket. That would give me the freedom to buy a lot of things and travel to many places.

That's a tax cut which will blow up the deficit, something you didn't mention but whatever.

How will this benefit people?
(As an aside, most of this may not matter anyway. It's going to take time to wind these things down. Much like trump opening up Anwar for drilling. Energy companies didn't bother with the absurd expense knowing that the next president will close it again. There's barely any active coal plants left. They aren't going to build new ones and reopening shuttered ones for a couple of years isn't cost effective either.)

EPA announces range of rollbacks on environmental regulations

Guess it makes for a good press release and the wingnuts can thump their chests that they're cutting regulations, the sickophants will eat it up.

[Vrede too]

Hey Jasmine, how does any of that stuff affect your personal freedoms?

Well, let’s say we shrink the federal government by lots, and so I get to keep more of my work income. Let’s say I get $5,000 more in my pocket. That would give me the freedom to buy a lot of things and travel to many places.

That's adorable that you think the Repuqs will achieve surpluses this time. Since WW2 Dem POTUSes have averaged lower deficits and stronger economies. Recently:
Reagan/Bush - large deficit increase.
Clinton - deficits into surpluses.
Bush 2 - surpluses into deficits, only reduced the deficit 3 years out of 8.
Obama - reduced the deficit 5 years out of 8, kept it essentially stable one other year.
Trump and the GQP pre-coronavirus - increased the deficit yuuugely.
Biden - deficit reduction from Former PINO's level.
The pattern is clear.

Musk's claims of a $5,000 check to taxpayers are just another mirage for the gullible to swallow. The whole point is a massive tax cut for the fatcats paid for by us and with massive deficit increases.

[O Really]

I am for education being more localized to better fit the needs of students.

Did you miss the part about the Federal Department of Education having nothing to do with curriculum, except as Trump has tried to do by threat of un-funding "woke" programs?

Meanwhile, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/20 ... abilities/

"Funding cut for new Poway Unified program for students with disabilities
U.S. Department of Education said program was canceled 'for convenience'"

The Charting My Path for Future Success program launched in January helped students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) identify goals, develop plans and act on those plans to achieve success after leaving high school.

Students with IEPs have disabilities, either physical, cognitive or emotional disabilities, including those who are visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing.

On Feb. 10, the district received a notice of intent to terminate the Charting My Path program in an email from the American Institutes for Research, said Poway Unified Director of Special Education Stacey McCrath-Smith.

Based on instructions from the U.S. Department of Education, McCrath-Smith said the roughly $1.2 million grant that was used to fund the two-year program at Poway Unified was being canceled immediately “for convenience.” The email stated that reimbursement of costs would not be issued beyond Feb. 10, she said.

[O Really]

Hey Jasmine, how does any of that stuff affect your personal freedoms?

Well, let’s say we shrink the federal government by lots, and so I get to keep more of my work income. Let’s say I get $5,000 more in my pocket. That would give me the freedom to buy a lot of things and travel to many places.

There has never been a direct correlation between reduced spending and tax cuts. But you can be assured that if there are savings, they'll be passed along to the most wealthy, like Trump's tax cuts past and proposed, and you won't be getting $5,000, or anything but maybe a lump of coal. Besides, the way things are going the Trump tariffs will make it so expensive that your $5,000 wouldn't buy much, and his ruined relations with other countries will pretty much confine you to US places. National parks are nice, except that now funding is being cut a lot of them won't operate very well. Remember what happened to the parks with the last "government shutdown"? Maybe you should stay in Hawaii - I doubt Trump knows where it is, so you may be safe from the carnage.

[O Really]

As for foreign aid, I could not possibly care less about making friends with other countries.

You might want to give that a little more thought. Would you rather live next to South Korea or North Korea? Canada or Russia? If a war was declared, and wasn't your fault, would you rather have allies who would help, or (at best) adversaries who told you to pound sand? And if you can build a little good will, a possible asset for the future and manage to feed a few hundred thousand starving kids too, isn't it a worthy cause? Donne said "no man is an island" and that applies to countries - even if they are physically on an island.

[Whack9]

As for foreign aid, I could not possibly care less about making friends with other countries.

You might want to give that a little more thought. Would you rather live next to South Korea or North Korea? Canada or Russia? If a war was declared, and wasn't your fault, would you rather have allies who would help, or (at best) adversaries who told you to pound sand? And if you can build a little good will, a possible asset for the future and manage to feed a few hundred thousand starving kids too, isn't it a worthy cause? Donne said "no man is an island" and that applies to countries - even if they are physically on an island.

There is a reason why throughout human history countries have sought to have cordial relationships and alliances with other countries. It's oftentimes mutually beneficial.

Soft power is an important tool for forging such alliances as well as gaining influence in world affairs.

[neoplacebo]

As O really noted, no man is an island. But I wish to embellish that....no man is an island; he's a peninsula.

[GoCubsGo]

Only a matter of time.

BUT MORE TAX CUTS FOR THE UBER WEALTHY PLEASE!

[Whack9]

Saw this elsewhere, thought the symbolism was rather pertinent

[Vrede too]

Only a matter of time.

BUT MORE TAX CUTS FOR THE UBER WEALTHY PLEASE!

https://bsky.app/profile/patriottakes.b ... h2mtjg3k2v

Perhaps stymied internationally, though.

Federal judge says Elon Musk exceeded his authority and that dismantling USAID was ‘likely’ unconstitutional

Billionaire Elon Musk appears to have overstepped his executive branch authority with his Department of Government Efficiency, a federal judge said Tuesday as he indefinitely blocked the dismantling of USAID.

“The court finds that Defendants’ unilateral actions to shut down USAID likely violated the United States Constitution,” said Judge Theodore D. Chuang of the US District Court in Maryland.

Chuang said that DOGE cannot terminate any more contracts or grants of USAID, nor can it fire or put on leave any more employees. He also cut off DOGE staffers from sharing sensitive personal data kept by the agency, in a major win for groups broadly challenging Musk’s role in the federal government.

Can Humpty Dumpty be put back together again?

The ruling, placing a preliminary injunction on DOGE, is one of the first major rulings to limit Musk’s work in the federal government because of the US Constitution.

And it may chart the way other courts will look at Musk, as his efforts and the Trump administration are challenged for attempting to dismantle other government agencies and abruptly cut back federal spending.

“Today’s decision is an important victory against Elon Musk and his DOGE attack on USAID, the US government and the Constitution,” said Norm Eisen, executive chair of State Democracy Defenders Fund, which backs the lawsuit. “They are performing surgery with a chainsaw instead of a scalpel, harming not just the people USAID serves but the majority of Americans who count on the stability of our government. This case is a milestone in pushing back on Musk and DOGE’s illegality.” ...

Fingers crossed.

[Vrede too]

Musk’s Team Is Less Transparent — We Found Its Big Errors Anyway

DOGE Makes Its Flubs Harder to Find. So Much for “Transparency”
The site tracking Elon Musk's federal funding cuts got even tougher to track after the New York Times found that its receipts were riddled with errors.

, Elon.

[Vrede too]

Taylor Tomlinson:
Don't
Obey
Grifter
Elon

[GoCubsGo]

Hell of a way to run a railroad.

Makes it a bunch easier to have no accountability though.

[Vrede too]

Hell of a way to run a railroad.

Makes it a bunch easier to have no accountability though.

https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bs ... rpkdo5kc2g

Why have an organizational chart when Elon is micromanaging everything and Amy Gleason is just a figurehead?



, again. What part of 'illegal' don't they understand?

[Vrede too]

The point about specs is well made. I agree some things for the military might require that. However, it has most likely gotten out of control by the desk officers in the Pentagon. We will find out soon enough when the Musk troops begin snooping around the Pentagon.

No comment on your having been duped both by POTUS Elon and by Jasmine with the whole FEMA/migrants/"luxury hotels"/disaster money thing?
viewtopic.php?p=208344#p208344
Figures, it's your norm when exposed to undeniable facts. No wonder you worship the lifelong cowardly "bone spurs" Chickenhawk in Chief, you identify with him.

Anyhow, kudos for joining the team questioning Pentagon spending and "endless wars". I've literally been on it for decades. We'll see if POTUS Musk really does anything or whether it will be the same GQP impotence there's always been. Let me know if you have any questions.

I mean GQP impotence at controlling Pentagon spending. As predicted, some RepuQs are finally drawing a line in the sand:

Republicans Take Stand Against Reported Trump Admin Plan

... "We will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress," (Sen) Wicker and (Rep) Rogers said in the statement....

Wicker and Rogers in their statement said they are "very concerned" about reports of "unilateral changes on major strategic issues, including significant reductions to U.S. forces stationed abroad, absent coordination with the White House and Congress." ...

They're not demanding these steps for all the other slashed departments, of course. Serve the Pentagon and merchants of death, nothing else matters.

What People Are Saying

... Former national security adviser John Bolton wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "During the Cold War, it was the Soviet objective to split the West. By Trump bringing Russia out of isolation and favoring it over Ukraine, and European NATO members saying they want independence from the U.S., we are heading toward achieving Moscow's long-standing objective."

Tom Malinowski, a former Democrat representative from New Jersey, wrote on X: "If the president of the United States was a genie in a bottle who offered Putin three wishes, on top of totally abandoning Ukraine, those wishes would be:

- Pull back from NATO
- End USAID
- Shut down Voice of America and Radio Free Europe

Trump's giving all for free." ...

[neoplacebo]

And the cult gushes in awe. Hilarious. But tragically chosen. And the cult gushes in awe. They better enjoy it while it lasts. I've previously given us two years but later revised it to less than a year. I guess we'll see who's right before long. And I bet old Russell Vought sure wishes the department of education was still part of the old department of health, education, and welfare. God hell, he'd be able to swing a big full bore slug at three at once. The cult gushes in ignorant awe.

[GoCubsGo]

As someone who used to venture in the park a couple of times a year, this is gonna suck.

Back country rescues are going to be affected. Bear encounters will increase as will poaching.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park closes campgrounds, trims offerings amid federal cuts

[GoCubsGo]

Guess Tesla needs a DOGE of their own.


Tesla has $1.4 billion that seems to have gone astray, potentially raising questions about the company’s controls

[Vrede too]

Guess Tesla needs a DOGE of their own.

Tesla has $1.4 billion that seems to have gone astray, potentially raising questions about the company’s controls

Even worse:

... Tesla shares have lost roughly half their value since their post-election high near the $490 mark in December. The company has shed nearly $750 billion in market cap amid plummeting sales and fears Musk’s work with President Donald Trump’s White House is damaging the brand and distracting him from his role as CEO of Tesla....

"$750 billion"! Hah! Yet Faux Noise has Jasmine, Supplicantsalemgr, MAGA and the rest of its viewers clutching their pearls over a few tens of thousands in insured damages from arson and other vandalism.