Can Elon And Vivek Defy History With DOGE?
Posted By: RockyTCB, 12/9/2024 9:01:07 AM
Wow. A government commission/initiative will cut waste. Reduce headcount. Chop a quarter of federal spending, including entire agencies. Eliminate counterproductive regulations. And increase efficiency to boot. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Hmm. Would that be President Taft’s Commission on Economy and Efficiency? Most recommendations were ignored, except the 1921 introduction of the federal budget process putting the executive in charge of driving budgets. That worked great a decade or so later when FDR generated a more-than-doubling of federal spending by 1940. Oh, wait. You mean the (Herbert) Hoover Commission? Two of them, really,
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Wow. A government commission/initiative will cut waste. Reduce headcount. Chop a quarter of federal spending, including entire agencies. Eliminate counterproductive regulations. And increase efficiency to boot.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Hmm. Would that be President Taft’s Commission on Economy and Efficiency? Most recommendations were ignored, except the 1921 introduction of the federal budget process putting the executive in charge of driving budgets. That worked great a decade or so later when FDR generated a more-than-doubling of federal spending by 1940.
Oh, wait. You mean the (Herbert) Hoover Commission? Two of them, really,
The Winning Has Already Begun
12 replies
Under normal circumstances, it takes a year or two before a president can have an impact on the economy or world affairs. But Donald Trump won’t be president for almost two months, and already we are feeling the effects of his election.
Consumers are more confident, manufacturers more optimistic, investors more bullish. Canada is promising to toughen up its border controls. Ukraine is talking about how to end its nearly three-year-long war. There’s a ceasefire in the Middle East.
Heck, even Trump’s favorability rating broke through 50%, a rarity since he first announced his candidacy in 2015.
Let’s look at the evidence:
If you’ve never heard the word “impoundment” before, you will – often – next year. And for good reason. Because this battle will determine whether government spending can ever be brought under control.
Last year, President-elect Donald Trump said that “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as impoundment.”
Since he’s been elected, he’s given every indication that he intends to reclaim this power. Indeed, the success of his “Department of Government Efficiency” run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy depends heavily
Donald Trump may have overwhelmingly won reelection, but according to Google’s content police, saying anything nice about him is “demonstrably false” and a threat to the “democratic process.”
Do you think we’re exaggerating?
We received notice the other day that our article “Unburdened By What Has Been, Trump Is Poised To Deliver Bigly” contained, according to Google, “unreliable and harmful claims.”
What falls into this category? Content that:
makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.
Day 1: Pipe And Drill
11 replies
Donald Trump has said that on the first day of his second term, he wants to “frack, frack, frack, and drill, drill, drill.” He needs to keep that promise – as well as reopen construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the Biden administration blocked, just as the Obama White House did before Trump reversed the policy in 2017.
“Put us to work right now,” a laid-off worker who had been building the pipeline when it was shut down said earlier this year. “And you will see not only the fuel prices go down, but you will see the price of
A mentally challenged President Joe Biden turned 82 years old this week, a much-diminished man from his heyday as a Democratic Party Senate stalwart in the last century. But one part of his character is undimmed by the passage of the years: His legendary spite and gleeful willingness to betray his political foes.
Knowing this, is he now about to set off a third world war to settle an election score with newly re-elected President Donald Trump, who Biden still calls an “existential threat” to America?
We’re talking of course of Biden’s inexplicably dangerous decision to encourage Ukraine to use long-range U.S. missiles against Russian
In what must be the millionth time never-Trumpers have predicted this, New York Times columnist David French claimed this week, pointing to appointments he doesn’t like, “Donald Trump is already starting to fail.”
But what really worries people like French and those on the left isn’t that Trump will fail. It’s that he’s off to an outstanding start and has the wind as his back to succeed. [snip] Think about what Trump was up against and what he accomplished in his first term.
After winning in 2016, Trump struggled to appoint his team. On inauguration day, he’d named only 29
As you’ve probably figured out, the headline above is a trick, a rhetorical question. Because we know going in that our government has spent so much since the COVID-era began that there’s no question it can be cut sharply. And, in answer to the question above, $2 trillion is just a start.
But that’s just a base number set by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, tagged by President-elect Donald Trump to head the new Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE” for short.
“As President Trump said, what we need is common sense,” Musk said. “This won’t be business as usual.
Is California Turning Purple?
11 replies
Two days after Donald Trump won the election, Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a special legislative session to “safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration.”
But Newsom could have a fight on his hands with Californians who are clearly tired of Newsom’s and his fellow leftists’ “values.”
Almost across the board, California voters rejected leftist ballot initiatives, often by wide margins. “State voters took a hammer to the most progressive propositions,” noted I&I contributor Thomas Buckley.
Examples:
One Month In, And The Gov’t Is Already
$257 Billion In The Red – DOGE Has A
Lot Of Work To Do 6 replies
$257 Billion In The Red – DOGE Has A
Lot Of Work To Do 6 replies
On Tuesday, Donald Trump announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would head the “Department of Government Efficiency.” That same day, the Treasury Department released a report showing why this effort is so desperately needed.
In his announcement, Trump said that he’s assigned the two to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.” It will, he said, “become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time.”
At Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in late October, Musk, when asked how much he
It’s hard to know just how much of the country hates Donald Trump. The easy answer is about half. But that’s probably wrong. Much less than half of the country voted against him last week and it would be a mistake to think that every one of those Americans hates the man. Surely a significant portion of Harris-Walz voters made their decisions simply because they either like Democratic policies or oppose the Republican agenda. If so, it would seem that Trump has an opportunity to unify a bitterly divided nation.
Still, there’s an angry, petty and vocal faction on the left that has no interest in unity because
Of all the excesses of the four-year Trump interregnum that was the Biden-Harris administration, none was worse than the left’s use of our legal system to exact political retribution and “send a message” to those who dared oppose progressive extremism. It had all the markings of totalitarian behavior, but now it’s going down in flames.
The idea of America as a nation ruled by laws, not by the biases and whims of political powers, has been central to our country’s identity and stability since its very founding. It’s what makes our country unique in the world.
But after Biden’s 2020 election win,
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FBI Director Christopher Wray plans to resign on or before Inauguration Day, according to recent reports. The move, widely seen as preemptive, reflects growing pressure from Republican lawmakers, led by Senator Charles Grassley, and signals yet another shift in leadership for an agency that has been at the center of political and institutional controversies over the past several years.
While Wray’s resignation isn’t entirely unexpected, it raises important questions about the future of the FBI, the challenges it faces, and the public’s trust in one of the nation’s most powerful institutions. This moment offers an opportunity to reflect on Wray’s tenure,
Catholics and Biblical scholars alike have been calling foul on recent attempts by supporters of Hamas to portray Jesus Christ as a "Palestinian." The historically incorrect narrative has been pushed by Muslims and other anti-Israel voices, who have sought to claim Jesus as their own in order to bolster support for the "from the river to the sea" destruction of the state of Israel. Sadly, it seems that the pro-Hamas cabal has found a kindred spirit in the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a one-time $300 payment to individuals earning $150,000 or less, and $500 to couples making $300,000 or less, her office announced Monday.
In what would be the state’s first “Inflation Refund,” Hochul wants to send about 8.6 million New Yorkers a few hundred dollars starting in fall 2025 if approved by the legislature, an official press release stated.
Around $3 billion in taxpayer funds would be allocated for the payments, which the governor called a “break” for her constituents.
.“Because of inflation, New York has generated unprecedented revenues through the sales tax — now, we’re returning that cash back to middle class families,
The outgoing Biden-Harris administration gave Iran $10 billion in sanctions relief just days after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, despite Iran’s ongoing attacks against Israel and support for terrorist organizations.The Washington Free Beacon reported:Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined on November 8 that “it is in the national security interest of the United States” to waive mandatory economic sanctions that bar Iraq from transferring upward of $10 billion to Iran in electricity import payments
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) flaunted her disobedience to her bishop in an interview on her Catholicism, saying that she always feels “there’s an angel” on her shoulder despite her vehement support for abortion. [Snip] Pelosi...said that she ignored the mandate of her bishop,...to stop receiving communion over her pro-abortion advocacy. [Snip] “I received Communion anyway,”..., adding of Cordileone. “That’s his problem, not mine.” “My Catholic faith is, Christ is my savior,” she added. “It has nothing to do with the bishops.” Later in the interview, she told the publication, “My faith is always with me....”
Jan. 6 investigators say Trump trying
to ‘send a message’ with calls for
their imprisonment 22 replies
to ‘send a message’ with calls for
their imprisonment 22 replies
Members of the special committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol are hitting back at President-elect Trump after he called for their imprisonment, saying the criminal conduct surrounding the rampage was committed by Trump and his supporters, not those who probed the tragedy afterwards.
The lawmakers on the now-defunct panel, which featured members of both parties, maintain that Trump’s threat to prosecute them puts him in league with tyrants who break laws with impunity and punish anyone who seeks to hold them to account.
Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fell over during a Senate lunch on Tuesday and medical staff were quickly called in. Although Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said McConnell was “fine,” he reportedly had a cut on his face and needed a wheelchair.
It’s the latest in a series of health issues for the 82-year-old, who had a strange “freezing” episode in August of 2023 after appearing to be unaware of where he was in July of that same year. he Kentucky Republican had already announced that he was stepping down from his leadership post:
McConnell was the longest-serving GOP leader in Senate history with a roughly 18-year tenure.
Ousted Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) argued in a letter addressed just to “White People” on Tuesday that “white supremacy” is the reason Daniel Penny was acquitted in the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.
In the bizarre rant, posted on X, the departing “Squad” lawmaker further suggested that he doesn’t understand why he feels the need to “keep talking” to white people.
“Dear White People,” Bowman’s manifesto begins.
“I don’t know why I feel the need to keep talking to you. I don’t know why part of me still has hope for you and for us. Some of you are too far gone."
The family of Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League graduate charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, said they were “devastated” by his arrest — as it was revealed the 26-year-old alleged gunman spiraled after undergoing “traumatic” back surgery.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” the family said in a statement shared by his cousin Nino Mangione, a Republican Baltimore County delegate, late Monday.
“We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news,” the Mangione family said.
Ask voters for their one-word description of what they will remember of Joe Biden's presidency and the results are damning: Old, inflation, falling.
Yet Biden will take the stage in Washington on Tuesday to try to cement his legacy as the leader who rebuilt the economy after the pandemic
The White House is billing the event as 'remarks on his middle-out, bottom-up economic playbook at the Brookings Institution.' But our latest survey of voter attitudes with J.L. Partners show the 82-year-old will mostly be remembered for crippling inflation and his own personal frailties, even by his supporters.
Luigi Mangione suffered a violent meltdown as he arrived at court after being arrested for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione, 26, could be heard telling about cops being 'completely out of touch' and 'insulting the intelligence of the American people' as he was bundled into court by a horde of sheriff's deputies.
Mangione, 26, comes from a prominent Maryland family on his father Louis side. His grandfather Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. One of his best-known projects was Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978.
Breaking: FBI Director Christopher Wray
to Resign Because He Doesn’t Want to
Get Fired by Trump 16 replies
to Resign Because He Doesn’t Want to
Get Fired by Trump 16 replies
Good riddance!
FBI Director Christopher Wray is preparing to resign as President Trump moves forward with nominee Kash Patel.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (IA) sent Christopher Wray a blistering letter on Monday and told him and his deputy Paul Abbate to step down for the good of the country.
“For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives,” Mr. Grassley wrote in the letter to Wray, according to The Washington Times. “I therefore must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI.”