That image comparing the "average" illegal immigrant to Donald Trump is insulting to the victims (and their familes) of crimes committed by illegals. Of course, the "average" illegal is not a violent criminal. But acting like Trump's "crimes" of incorrectly categorizing payments made to his lawyer are worse than the violent rapes and murders committed by some illegals because only a small percentage of illegals are involved is just sick!
"President Trump has appointed Secretary of State Rubio as the acting director of USAID, and he will see to it that henceforth, the agency functions as originally intended."
I see even that as a problem. The programs of "food assistance, basic healthcare and vaccination" just lead to exploitation of the people in poorer nations and the enrichment of their politicians. Look at U.S. health outcomes. Why would we want to inflict that suffering on people in other countries? Plus, future presidents would be able to withhold this aid if the leaders of those nations don't align with their political and social goals.
What's wonderful about all this is how it caught all the leftist grifters by surprise. Unlike Trump Administration 1.0, which leaked everything so that it ended up on the front page of the New York Times the very next day, this came as pretty much of a surprise to everyone. Yes, Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy kept talking about DOGE during the campaign, but they didn't give the slightest hint of how they were going to do it.
And that's why you see mobs of congressmen screaming about how they're going to resist, without filing a lawsuit challenging DOGE's actual legality. All they have is performative demonstrations.
The acceptance of grift at USAID is indefensible. 270 million for the Soros gang over 15 years?? Really?? This is disgusting. Billions sent to terrorist? The inmates are running the asylum. Clean it up.
We can argue about the nature of Democracy and whether Democrats are really trying to save it or just assert the role of the legislative branch 'til the cows come home, Thomas, but that is really not the issue. The issue is not whether our government has a bias to "the Left" , it is HAVING ANY GOVERNMENT LEFT after Elon and the gang have "retired" all the civil servants and fiddled with the IT infrastructure.
Whether you consider yourself a conservative or just an "independent", I would expect you to be appalled at the damage being done to the way government functions.
Taking a wrecking ball to the institutions of government is an extreme way of implementing change. Trump, Musk, Vought, Leonard Leo et alia are radical ultra-conservatives taking maximally extremist positions and doing their damnedest to smash government into a thousand pieces. And, conceivably, they might succeed.
Apparently you don't like bureaucracy. Well, join the club. I don't know anybody who does, but that's what government is, through and through. When you're talking government there is no escaping bureaucracy, layers and layers of it (supervised by layers of lawyers, btw).
How do you feel about the Department of Defense? It's one of the most enormous bureaucracies on earth. Should that be smashed to pieces, along with USAID, the Department of Education, DEI programs , the FBI (for heavens' sake - the F.B.-effing- I.???) and whatever else is next on Trump's to UnDo list???
I'm guessing Trump next plans to tear apart the CIA under some flimsy excuse - e.g. because "they are a bunch of crazy Marxist radical loonies" or something equally bizarre. Can't wait for the next exciting episode of "As America Turns (into rubble)".
Setting an unsupervised gang of coder-geeks loose to monkey around with the machinery of the Treasury is a bad idea; I'm sure worse is to come.
Are you on glue, by the way? Who’s proposing to deconstruct the Department of Defense? Precisely no one. As for the CIA, I’m old enough to recall a time when the Left utterly reviled it and called for its abolition. So don’t expect me to believe that leftie creeps like AOC and Bernie Sanders really care what happens to it now.
And if we’re honest, it must be admitted that the CIA’s record is none too brilliant. It totally failed, for example, to forecast the terminal crisis that brought down the USSR: Quite the failure when one recalls that the USSR was the CIA’s primary intelligence target for decades. Indeed, we need to take a hard look at the entire intelligence establishment.
The administrative state is over-mighty, bloated, inefficient and in many cases contemptuous of democratic accountability. USAID supplies a glaring example of that last deficiency. Downsizing it and restricting it to its original mission is simple common sense. But we get Democrats and progressives screaming that somehow that application of common sense is an assault on “our democracy.” That’s just crap.
The Dems are the party of big government and they serve its interests, which are not necessarily in the public interest. What is in the public interest is shaking up that nice, comfy relationship. If the Department of Education, for instance, is so vital, it should have no problem justifying its existence to the American people, who are paying for it. Right?
Giggle emporium- you actually had me ROFLMAO. I am now going to steal that for my every day.
Dems really are an embarrassment. If USAID was created by EO where do they get off saying it has to be ended by congress? There is so much graft and corruption in USAID it has simply become a Democratic slush fund. Why is USAID sending 28 million to the Tides Foundation? Why are they sending any monies to the Rockefeller foundation? Get rid of the garbage and then set it to do what it was meant to do in the first place.
POTUS has the authority under certain circumstance to withhold monies and arms oked by Congress. I didn't see Dems have a conniption fit when Biden withheld the bombs and bullets from Israel while it was fighting for its survival. A pox on them.
That image comparing the "average" illegal immigrant to Donald Trump is insulting to the victims (and their familes) of crimes committed by illegals. Of course, the "average" illegal is not a violent criminal. But acting like Trump's "crimes" of incorrectly categorizing payments made to his lawyer are worse than the violent rapes and murders committed by some illegals because only a small percentage of illegals are involved is just sick!
"President Trump has appointed Secretary of State Rubio as the acting director of USAID, and he will see to it that henceforth, the agency functions as originally intended."
I see even that as a problem. The programs of "food assistance, basic healthcare and vaccination" just lead to exploitation of the people in poorer nations and the enrichment of their politicians. Look at U.S. health outcomes. Why would we want to inflict that suffering on people in other countries? Plus, future presidents would be able to withhold this aid if the leaders of those nations don't align with their political and social goals.
The department needs to be completely abolished.
Since when has the left worried about bureaucrats? The love bureaucrats. It’s how they have gotten everything done over the years.
What's wonderful about all this is how it caught all the leftist grifters by surprise. Unlike Trump Administration 1.0, which leaked everything so that it ended up on the front page of the New York Times the very next day, this came as pretty much of a surprise to everyone. Yes, Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy kept talking about DOGE during the campaign, but they didn't give the slightest hint of how they were going to do it.
And that's why you see mobs of congressmen screaming about how they're going to resist, without filing a lawsuit challenging DOGE's actual legality. All they have is performative demonstrations.
The acceptance of grift at USAID is indefensible. 270 million for the Soros gang over 15 years?? Really?? This is disgusting. Billions sent to terrorist? The inmates are running the asylum. Clean it up.
Hired by the Government which was Elected by the Majority…. Suck it up losers 💪💪💪🫡🇺🇸MAGA😎
Democracy? There’s no world , no universe outside the Administrative State.
The greatest of your article is how good your analysis makers the normal reader feel!
We can argue about the nature of Democracy and whether Democrats are really trying to save it or just assert the role of the legislative branch 'til the cows come home, Thomas, but that is really not the issue. The issue is not whether our government has a bias to "the Left" , it is HAVING ANY GOVERNMENT LEFT after Elon and the gang have "retired" all the civil servants and fiddled with the IT infrastructure.
Whether you consider yourself a conservative or just an "independent", I would expect you to be appalled at the damage being done to the way government functions.
Taking a wrecking ball to the institutions of government is an extreme way of implementing change. Trump, Musk, Vought, Leonard Leo et alia are radical ultra-conservatives taking maximally extremist positions and doing their damnedest to smash government into a thousand pieces. And, conceivably, they might succeed.
Apparently you don't like bureaucracy. Well, join the club. I don't know anybody who does, but that's what government is, through and through. When you're talking government there is no escaping bureaucracy, layers and layers of it (supervised by layers of lawyers, btw).
How do you feel about the Department of Defense? It's one of the most enormous bureaucracies on earth. Should that be smashed to pieces, along with USAID, the Department of Education, DEI programs , the FBI (for heavens' sake - the F.B.-effing- I.???) and whatever else is next on Trump's to UnDo list???
I'm guessing Trump next plans to tear apart the CIA under some flimsy excuse - e.g. because "they are a bunch of crazy Marxist radical loonies" or something equally bizarre. Can't wait for the next exciting episode of "As America Turns (into rubble)".
Setting an unsupervised gang of coder-geeks loose to monkey around with the machinery of the Treasury is a bad idea; I'm sure worse is to come.
(apologies for any typos I didn't catch)
Are you on glue, by the way? Who’s proposing to deconstruct the Department of Defense? Precisely no one. As for the CIA, I’m old enough to recall a time when the Left utterly reviled it and called for its abolition. So don’t expect me to believe that leftie creeps like AOC and Bernie Sanders really care what happens to it now.
And if we’re honest, it must be admitted that the CIA’s record is none too brilliant. It totally failed, for example, to forecast the terminal crisis that brought down the USSR: Quite the failure when one recalls that the USSR was the CIA’s primary intelligence target for decades. Indeed, we need to take a hard look at the entire intelligence establishment.
The administrative state is over-mighty, bloated, inefficient and in many cases contemptuous of democratic accountability. USAID supplies a glaring example of that last deficiency. Downsizing it and restricting it to its original mission is simple common sense. But we get Democrats and progressives screaming that somehow that application of common sense is an assault on “our democracy.” That’s just crap.
The Dems are the party of big government and they serve its interests, which are not necessarily in the public interest. What is in the public interest is shaking up that nice, comfy relationship. If the Department of Education, for instance, is so vital, it should have no problem justifying its existence to the American people, who are paying for it. Right?
Giggle emporium- you actually had me ROFLMAO. I am now going to steal that for my every day.
Dems really are an embarrassment. If USAID was created by EO where do they get off saying it has to be ended by congress? There is so much graft and corruption in USAID it has simply become a Democratic slush fund. Why is USAID sending 28 million to the Tides Foundation? Why are they sending any monies to the Rockefeller foundation? Get rid of the garbage and then set it to do what it was meant to do in the first place.
POTUS has the authority under certain circumstance to withhold monies and arms oked by Congress. I didn't see Dems have a conniption fit when Biden withheld the bombs and bullets from Israel while it was fighting for its survival. A pox on them.
Please feel free to appropriate that one. Where writing is concerned, theft is the sincerest form of flattery…
Don’t forget Granny Clampett on LSD — hilarious for those of us of a certain age.
I guess I was on something of a roll today…
LOL-That was really good, too.