Thank you for this illuminating post. Sadly, Fox News and other such Right-wing sources continue to spread filth and deliberate lies for the gullible to consume...
To suggest that the broad mass of people have lost their critical faculties is to presuppose they had them in the first place. As media has become fragmented nobody knows who or what to trust anymore. Into such a disordered landscape come the liars and conmen who are allowed to say whatever they want without effective challenge.
Soon after I posted my essay on USAID I saw a video of an interview with Jasmine Crockett on MSNBC. Crockett said that if Musk wanted to audit federal agencies he would hire a team of accountants and not a peculiar band of code compilers. I have heard her make the same point in a DOGE sub-committee hearing. To me it is blindingly obvious but Crockett seems to be a faint voice in the wilderness.
What I suspect Musk and his acolytes are doing is undertaking key word searches through the Treasury payment systems looking for acronyms such as DEI or the actual words themselves. They then find contracts, supposedly, for $36,000 to be spent on DEI.
Trump's spokesperson, Leavitt, then parades documents she suggests are cancelled contracts which have been cancelled because they are inconsistent with Trump's directive on DEI. Without more detail I cannot know but it seems to me that Leavitt displays an appalling ignorance of law and government.
Firstly, it is likely that the money was already appropriated and it is not for Trump, Musk or the coders to abandon the appropriation without Congressional authority. Second, if one of the parties to a contract could walk away from the contract without a penalty of some kind, it was not much of a contract. In other words, it is likely that the private sector contractor gets paid but doesn't have to deliver the service. If so, then what is happening is an execrable example of politics as theatre.
Definitely, Crockett is a fire-ball, intelligent too. Need more of her to get the congress off its butt and wake up to what's happening with Maga and Musk. And, no small matter, the confirmations of idiots. Just learned that Gabbard has been confirmed.
Yeah, politics as theatre has a long and memorable contemporary history -- and continues because it's SO successful.
Thank you for this illuminating post. Sadly, Fox News and other such Right-wing sources continue to spread filth and deliberate lies for the gullible to consume...
To suggest that the broad mass of people have lost their critical faculties is to presuppose they had them in the first place. As media has become fragmented nobody knows who or what to trust anymore. Into such a disordered landscape come the liars and conmen who are allowed to say whatever they want without effective challenge.
Robert, excellent excellent post today. (Now, you still want to know about Naypidaw? -- Just kidding of course.)
Soon after I posted my essay on USAID I saw a video of an interview with Jasmine Crockett on MSNBC. Crockett said that if Musk wanted to audit federal agencies he would hire a team of accountants and not a peculiar band of code compilers. I have heard her make the same point in a DOGE sub-committee hearing. To me it is blindingly obvious but Crockett seems to be a faint voice in the wilderness.
What I suspect Musk and his acolytes are doing is undertaking key word searches through the Treasury payment systems looking for acronyms such as DEI or the actual words themselves. They then find contracts, supposedly, for $36,000 to be spent on DEI.
Trump's spokesperson, Leavitt, then parades documents she suggests are cancelled contracts which have been cancelled because they are inconsistent with Trump's directive on DEI. Without more detail I cannot know but it seems to me that Leavitt displays an appalling ignorance of law and government.
Firstly, it is likely that the money was already appropriated and it is not for Trump, Musk or the coders to abandon the appropriation without Congressional authority. Second, if one of the parties to a contract could walk away from the contract without a penalty of some kind, it was not much of a contract. In other words, it is likely that the private sector contractor gets paid but doesn't have to deliver the service. If so, then what is happening is an execrable example of politics as theatre.
Definitely, Crockett is a fire-ball, intelligent too. Need more of her to get the congress off its butt and wake up to what's happening with Maga and Musk. And, no small matter, the confirmations of idiots. Just learned that Gabbard has been confirmed.
Yeah, politics as theatre has a long and memorable contemporary history -- and continues because it's SO successful.
I’m not so sure that Gabbard is the worst. My order would be:
Tattoo Hegseth
Void Vought
Bondage Bondi
RFK jr
Bullet head Noem
Patel - he would be first but he cannot be confirmed now given his perjury.
Stripper X Transport Secretary but whose name escapes me.