Looking for Corruption & Waste in the Federal Government?

 

Looking for Corruption & Waste in the Federal Government?

I’ll Tell You Where to Start

"People are concerned about what DOGE is, what it can do, what its powers are, if they're overstepping the law. They're concerned about the rapidity of the moves and people losing their benefits… I'm all for trimming the government; I am all for also doing it in a deliberate manner that allows people to adjust to their lifestyles ... We're talking about people who are struggling and have to make big decisions… "You can lose that message with just one attitude. And if nothing else, we have to be careful with how we message this so it doesn't come across as discompassionate… In my opinion, we have to be a little more -- give people a little more to adjust, who are about lose their jobs." 

GOP Georgia Congressman Rich McCormick said after being confronted by angry constituents at a town hall event.

Someone once said, if you want find truth in an investigation, follow the money. In DOGE-land, with the approval of the President of the United States, himself convicted of the 34 felony counts including fraudulent filings on tax forms and bank applications, one of America’s major federal contractors (as owner, major shareholder or CEO of entities doing major business with the federal government) has been given more power than any other non-US president in our entire history.

Elon Musk controls a bevy of companies with federal deals in effect or pending – from selling Teslas to the government, controlling communications satellites, mounting a rocket company that provides major services to federal agencies, requiring X to be the outlet for government social media announcements, etc., etc. In a joint press conference in the Oval Office, with Musk carrying his son, arms around daddy’s head (see above), where the President mumbled something about Musk’s withdrawing where there is a deal with the federal government… apparently voluntarily. All references to “transparency” seem to simply to use that word with little in the way of substantive definitions.

Looming additional conflicts are scary too, not to mention exactly what Musk might do with all that personal data he is generating as part of his government “efficiency” efforts. Cutting regulatory bodies that impact his business are already compromised. Where the government regulated automobile safety, it is no longer going to record and report on Tesla accidents anymore. Or try this: as Musk’s X contemplates adding a consumer financial component – such efforts would normally be subject to regulation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency that has returned billions of dollars to consumers by reason of financial games perpetrated by companies huge and tiny. Here’s the catch: Musk is trying to disband that agency, giving X and open road to play fast and loose with consumers’ money.

Yet, the government is taking the position that Musk wasn't technically involved as an employee or leader of the cost-cutting initiative or change in regulations, notwithstanding emails he has directed to be sent to federal employees, the specific hatchet-wielding firings, agency closings that all emanated from Musk. He is described simply as a “Senior Advisor to the President.” It appears the “acting administrator” head of DOGE is one Amy Gleason, with experience in health care who previously worked at the US Digital Service, an office created by President Barack Obama. If anyone believes she is making any meaningful decisions, there’s a bridge for sale in Brooklyn.

Bottom line, with an investment in Trump’s campaign (somewhere between $250-$300 million), Musk’s rate of return has been staggering: “His companies have gained a combined $613 billion in value since the election assuming anticipated funding rounds go as planned, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.” Bloomberg, February 19th.

As a few Republicans have braved town hall meetings with their constituents, they are quivering over the raucous demands of angry voters, now facing the horrors of the implementation of Trump’s pledge to destroy the “deep state” (whatever that means) and require all federal employees to evidence loyalty to him personally. To put it mildly, these grassroots meetings did not go well, and the general thrust of the local comments demanded the removal of an unelected semi-governmental official with the kind of universal authority to remake the federal government from the ground up.

The conflicts of interest noted above were more than obvious to those voters, but as the above quote suggests, the GOP message back on Capitol Hill does not confront Trump or Musk… and tiptoes about the potential impact in the next election (if there is one) on Republicans running for office. Musk is deeply resented, and virtually all major polls show Trump generating higher disapprovals than approvals, a major reversal. The GOP may be facing a day of reckoning soon. There are strange clearly unqualified people moving from DOGE into senior positions in major agencies… like Edward Coristine , 19, also known online as “Big Balls,” who has been listed as a “senior adviser” at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology. He has also been granted access to the Department of Homeland Security computers.

Even with DOGE, there are signs that employees there know they are doing something very wrong: “More than 20 civil service employees [from the federal US Digital Services] resigned Tuesday [2/25] from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they refused to use their technical expertise to ‘dismantle critical public services.’… The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.” Associated Press, February 25th.

It seems equally clear that both the Trump administration and DOGE are contemplating defying federal court orders (and there are several of them), rulings that the DOGE slash and burn approach is usurping the Congressional “power of the purse” by refusing to disburse funds mandated by that legislative body, is making massive personnel decisions and cancelling federal programs without authority and abusing constitutional restrictions and specific legislation (e.g., the laws that protect civil servants).

If that non-compliance occurs, and if holdings and penalties for “contempt” do not work, we will have the greatest constitutional conflict since the Civil War. We just might wake up to a bloodless coup (bloodless so far), where the United States eschews any pretense that it is a representational democracy… and accepts the mantle of pure autocracy. Oh sure, we may have “elections,” as many autocracies have claimed, but somehow the brutal strongman always gets reelected. We all want to eliminate corruption and waste in government. We just should not replace it with just a different form of waste and corruption.

I’m Peter Dekom, and because of what is happening in the United States, regardless of how unpopular these “government efficiencies” are going, we cannot let this effort be an excuse for both irreversible damage to the country and to install a brutal dictatorship as the sole source of governmental authority over all of us.