Stop Corruption and Waste in the Federal Government

Stop Corruption and Waste in the Federal Government?

Shut down DOGE and End Presidential Immunity 

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

It doesn’t take much digging to see how graft, grifting, corruption and lucrative conflicts dominate what passes for Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). And yes, Musk does run DOGE as the President himself declared in his recent address to Congress. For example, Musk’s closings and reprioritizing governmental agencies under his DOGE rubric often have hidden meanings. As he pushes to shut down and de-staff NASA’s traditional function over placement of strategic satellites, he suggests they just focus on their Mars mission, guess which private company is slated to take over those “normal NASA functions”? Hmm? Could it be Musk’s SpaceX? Musk is also pushing competitors, like Verizon, to leave the placement of new communications satellites… so Musk can have them.

Specifically, Musk makes millions of dollars a day from federal contracts. “As billionaire businessman Elon Musk has been leading an unprecedented effort to slash government spending, his own companies have, over the last several years, received an increasing amount of funding through government contracts, according to federal spending data… Over the last decade, Musk's companies SpaceX and Tesla were awarded at least $18 billion in federal contracts, according to spending data -- with SpaceX winning more than $17 billion worth of contracts since 2015… Federal contracts to SpaceX doubled at the beginning of the Biden administration, going from $1.1 billion in the 2020 fiscal year to $2.2 billion in the 2021 fiscal year. The contracts continued to grow under Biden, reaching $3.7 billion during the 2024 fiscal year.” ABC News, February 10th. And the grift just keeps on coming.

Maybe you think it’s perfectly normal for the President of the United States, standing in front of the White House, to market cars… in this case Musk’s Teslas. Or that that same President, who once declared crypto currencies to be a scam, is now hyper-accelerating the value of his own family’s recent foray into crypto (and significantly enhancing Musk’s crypto holdings) by announcing his plans to create a federal crypto reserve, thus “legitimizing the scam”… one which recently allowed North Korea to hack its way to a $1.5 billion online cryptocurrency heist. Maybe you prefer gold sneakers, Trump bibles, expensive gold watches, TruthSocial stock, nice red hats, or even that wonderful $5 million dollar gold card, a path to US citizenship.

Even using Jesus as a launching platform for unscrupulous religious solicitations of for “donations.” On February 7th, President Donald Trump issued an executive order reinstating his version of the White House Faith Office and once again placing Florida pastor and longtime supporter Paula White-Cain in charge of the initiative. White has an office in the White House and has used her appointment to promise all kinds of God-bestowed life enhancing benefits and tangible religious artifacts to those who donate $1000 or more to her ministry. Holy grift, Batman!

Republicans have all kinds of excuses to cut taxes for the rich, none of them valid when actually used. Like “a rising tide floats all boats” or “incent the job creators” which neither produces more good jobs or adds critical investment for the betterment of the nation. Most of the cuts sponsored by DOGE are not reductions to save money but are more focused on Trump’s culture war and his promised massive tax cut mostly benefitting billionaires.

Look at the focus only on cutting Social Security benefits to keep the system solvent, when the very basis for funding Social Security has been obsolete for decades. See my March 28th A Monarchy Does Not Desire or Require Logic and the Rule of Law blog if you want the details. Cutting IRS staffing is estimated to reduce tax collections by 10% or more, and the “savings” from DOGE’s other cuts – even before the lawsuits under civil service laws are taken into consideration – is not remotely what is touted. The above NY Times charts (from March 31st) suggest the federal budget is NOT coming down, and most of federal budgets are mandatory expenses (like paying interest on our deficit or supporting Social Security).

An analysis in the NY Times’ The Morning news feed for March 31st, by German Lopez and Ashley Wu is most informative: “Discussions about federal spending are difficult because the numbers are so large that they can be difficult to grasp. How many ordinary folks can truly comprehend how much $1 billion — that’s a thousand millions — is? And still, it’s a rounding error (just 0.01 percent of spending) compared with the nearly $7 trillion federal budget.

“This is the context for the federal spending cuts led by President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Last week, the administration announced its latest dismissals: 10,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services. That sounds like a lot of people, but it’s small for a government that employs three million civilian workers.

“How much has DOGE pared back so far? Federal spending is actually higher this year than it was at this point in 2024, according to the Hamilton Project… For years, many economists downplayed concerns about the debt. Interest rates were low, and debt payments — the cost of borrowing all that money — were consequently low, too. Inflation was also low, which suggested that government spending hadn’t overheated the economy… But interest rates and inflation have increased. Today, the federal government spends more to pay off its debt each year than it spends on Medicare or the military. Economists now warn that the federal debt is piling up too quickly.

“At the same time, politicians are scared of cutting popular programs. Trump has ruled out cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military. Along with interest payments, that’s about 70 percent of what the government spends. There’s an old saying among wonks: The United States government is just an insurance company with a standing army.” Repairing the damage caused by DOGE’s meat-axe approach to cutting federal expenses will probably exceed any “savings” by billions of dollars. Contrast this to a reasoned cost-cutting approach during the Clinton administration, in full cooperation with federal agencies, that slashed a real $400 billion (roughly $750 billion in today’s dollars) from the federal budget. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs and other elements of economic mismanagement will increase costs to consumers by trillions!

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the Trump/Musk federal budget cuts inflict pain and suffering on the American people to benefit mostly billionaires, for anyone willing to look at the actual results, it becomes obvious that this Musk-gone-mad approach is just a disguised culture war with no real overall spending cuts.

Alone and Abandoned – How Trump’s Divide and Conquer Strategy Is Succeeding

 

Media moguls on the stage at Trump’s Inauguration

Alone and Abandoned – How Trump’s Divide and Conquer Strategy Is Succeeding

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

“We believe in maintaining, by affirmative efforts, a membership of partners and associates reflecting a wide variety of religious, political, ethnic and social backgrounds, characteristic of that community. We believe that through this policy we may bring to the service of our clients greater breadth of understanding and wider contacts with the world at large, while enriching our personal lives and demonstrating the value of democratic principles as applied to the organization of a law firm… We refuse to be deterred by the unpopularity of a client or his cause from accepting a matter which justice and professional responsibility prompt us to take.” 

1963 Statement of law firm Paul Weiss’ principles

We’ve watched major universities with solid legal positions against Trump efforts to bring them to heel… cave like a house of cards. Like prestigious Columbia University’s putting several regional and ethnic studies programs (like their Middle Eastern and African American programs) into de facto Trumpian “receivership.” Columbia, reeling from charges of antisemitism which could be more directly dealt with, allowed an overall surrender on anything that could be viewed as DEI related and curricula dealing with ethnic studies relating to individuals who may be involved in civil rights or other protests. In what should have been a national university outrage against government interference with academic free speech, the fear of losing federal funds as mandated by Trump or his henchmen (including Musk), brought a wall of silence to American academia.

Columbia was just the most recent and obvious example, but Trump had no trepidation cutting $175 million of federal funds to his own alma mater (University of Pennsylvania where Wharton is contained) pending fixing their DEI issues, and the California state University system (focusing on Berkeley and UCLA) is a more recent Trump target. As each of these institutions is challenged, they now know that among their fellow institutions of higher learning, they are alone and abandoned. It’s every school for itself.

As Trump has sued large corporations where their larger asset base may include media – print, online or in some form of telecasting networks – for a distorted view of “defamation” that would otherwise die under the judicial standards (e.g., as set forth in the 1964 Times vs Sullivan Supreme Court ruling), instead big checks flowed to settle the legal claims as well as to Trumpian causes. Trump has so many tools to apply to make their lives miserable, from tax audits to federal license renewal to DOJ investigation, that fear cowed CEO everywhere, particularly in media, that may be critical to Trump or his policies. The new chair of the FCC announced that any media companies that support any form of “DEI discrimination” have no shot at getting their mergers approved. See numbers of top media executives at Trump’s inauguration above in privileged spots.

But something that really hit home for me is the overall reluctance of law firms, with Trump-revoked necessary security clearances necessary to represent clients with government contracts and being told that they were likely to find fierce resistance from government lawyers. Mega-legal powerhouse law firms Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling were unwilling to take sure winners to defeat this practice to court. The time it would take to win, they reasoned, would destroy their practice. There was not the slightest evidence that other law firms, perhaps the expected mass of law firms might come to their aid, boycotting essential legal services needed by the government… Those firms were essentially alone and abandoned. The list of good lawyers willing to represent clients against Trump’s and Musk’s government dropped like a stone.

When a like attack against an equally powerful law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, the firm not only caved to Trump demands but agreed further as noted below. The Wall Street powerhouse, becoming yet another big firm alone and abandoned by its competitors whose practices are subject to the same Trumpian demands and mandates. They believed they had no choice. After all, it was now clear that AG Pam Bondi’s DOJ and Kash Patel’s FBI were simply lackies for the President, waiting to implement his “retribution.” For decades, Paul Weiss was governed by the principles enunciated in part in the above cited statement of principles. No longer. As stated in an email to Paul Weiss staff, Brad S Karp, Chairman wrote why he accepted the horrific settlement with the Trump administration. Here is an excerpt from that email:

“Late in the evening of Friday, March 14, the President issued an executive order targeting our firm. Since then, we have been facing an unprecedented threat to our firm unlike anything since Samuel Weiss first hung out a shingle in downtown Manhattan on April 1, 1875 — almost exactly 150 years ago. Only several days ago, our firm faced an existential crisis. The executive order could easily have destroyed our firm. It brought the full weight of the government down on our firm, our people, and our clients. In particular, it threatened our clients with the loss of their government contracts, and the loss of access to the government, if they continued to use the firm as their lawyers. And in an obvious effort to target all of you as well as the firm, it raised the specter that the government would not hire our employees. We were hopeful that the legal industry would rally to our side, even though it had not done so in response to executive orders targeting other firms. We had tried to persuade other firms to come out in public support of Covington and Perkins Coie. And we waited for firms to support us in the wake of the President's executive order targeting Paul, Weiss. Disappointingly, far from support, we learned that certain other firms were seeking to exploit our vulnerabilities by aggressively soliciting our clients and recruiting our attorneys… [The agreement with the Trump administration] had three primary components. First, we reiterated our commitment to viewpoint diversity, including in recruiting and in the intake of new matters. Second, while retaining our longstanding commitment to diversity in all of its forms, we agreed that we would follow the law with respect to our employment practices. And third, we agreed to commit $10 million per year over the next four years in pro bono time in three areas in which we are already doing significant work: assisting our Nation's veterans, countering anti-Semitism, and promoting the fairness of the justice system.”

So Trump has successfully installed the Sword of Damocles over big media, has taken control of university academic programs teaching about foreign cultures in a manner Trump finds woke or uncomfortable to MAGA, and powerful law firms, even individual practitioners, with government practices, will hold back representing clients and issues that are antithetical to Trump’s personal beliefs even if they are targeting protecting basic constitutional rights. Where is the Democratic Party in all this? A recent poll showed half of all Californians are so disenchanted with the “Blue Wimps” that they would even consider voting for a Republican for governor.

I’m Peter Dekom and this is a message to elected and aspiring Democrats, eliciting the words of Donald John Trump himself: “If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore.”

Those Who See Government as Our Public Service Sector Have Lost Big

   

Child-killer? Social Security Scoffer / Cabinet members who use unsecured devices & platforms for classified communications

Those Who See Government as Our Public Service Sector Have Lost Big

Trump Loyalists, Billionaires Seeking Benefits & Protection, and Idiot Savants Have Replaced Democracy

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

"The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperations, is over… The time will come for a broad renegotiation of our security and trade relationship."

Canadian PM Mark Carney

"He's been through so much – the lawfare, having been the leader of the free world, having had an assassination attempt… He's a different person than he was." 

White House Chief of Staff, Susan Wiles

Make no mistake, as special elections for state offices flip once major MAGA strongholds and town halls have made an indelible impression that augurs badly for Trump followers, Donald Trump has noticed. His pulling of GOP stalwart and member of Congress, Elise Stefanik, out of her nomination for UN Ambassador, happened for one reason: despite the fact that her NY district went for Trump by 20 points in November, Trump fears that in any special election that would be needed to replace her, that district could easily go Democratic, putting that narrow GOP majority in the House at greater risk. So, back to the House she goes. Apparently, Americans do not like severe cutbacks to staffing at the VA and the Social Security Administration, the press to decimate Medicaid and the National Park Service. Why? Go figure! This blog is no “April Fools” day talk.

Trump’s recent executive order, and the underlying legislation sitting in the House, have focused on “election integrity” – looking for fraud that simply is as rare as hen’s teeth – but the impact is to cull voters likely to support Democrats. How many rural minorities or Native Americans have birth certificates or passports, the required IDs Trump seeks to require as a precondition to voting? And if that doesn’t work, will Trump use “national security” or an “enemy invasion” as an excuse to delay the midterms? Even as a hapless Democratic Party, which should be organizing “million-voter” marches across the entire US, but particularly in red states, stand idly by, grassroots efforts everywhere suggest the probability of seroious GOP loses if full and fair midterms are allowed.

In the meantime, the nation is watching a new, deeper state evolve. One where fat cats need not worry about audits from a depleted IRS, as Musk smiles as DOGE operatives invade the Securities and Exchange Commission, where Musk has been accused of violations regulations and underlying statutes. Trump-product salesman, Donald Trump, is grinning ear-to-ear as corruption and favoritism become national policy, as Trump touts Teslas at the White House, as he self-serves his family’s crypto holdings by elevating what he once called a “scam,” crypto currency, as worthy of a special federal crypto reserve, as conspiracy theorists tout medical cures that are seriously dangerous, as loyalists at the DOJ fight NY courts to help reverse anti-Trump decisions, as other multi-year senior DOJ staffers face firing for refusing to profess specific loyalty to Trump, and as Trump focuses his efforts on private institutions from law firms (to reduce their willingness to challenge Trump edicts) to universities (“Professors are the enemy,” according to JD Vance) which are now stopped in their tracks from creating new “job creating” technologies and exploring cures to diseases that infect millions of Americans.

But as Trump has appointed some of the least qualified cabinet appointees and senior disruptors in a century, rife with conflicts of interest that are worn like a badge of honor, where a horde of Trump appointees are billionaires overseeing federal agencies that once were designated to oversee them and rein in their excesses, scandals, missteps, and major errors are standard, serious national security leaks are explained away, we now have the most shamelessly corrupt executive branch in our nation’s substantial history. See if you can name the above pictured scoundrels appointed to cabinet leadership positions and identify their lack of qualifications, biases, and clear mistakes since they assumed their cabinet roles. I won’t help you!

If you want a short analysis of our current fall from grace among our international allies, as we threaten to take Greenland and view Canada as merely our 51st state, pull out of treaty commitments as if they didn’t exist, just read Canada’s Mark Carney statement above. His words ring true among most of our allies. While Susie Wiles’ quote above suggests the assassination attempts on Trump have made him a better leader, there are many others who say he’s starting to believe that God spared him to rule, completely in charge.

For all those American soldiers killed fighting Russian pilots in Korea or opposing Russian surrogates in regional conflicts, that Vladimir Putin has replaced our Western leaders in a cherished relationship with the highest levels of our government has to be the greatest act of betrayal they could imagine. Our major international opponent in most of the post-WWII era, Russia is now closer to us that any democratic ally. Reagan’s “evil empire” is now Trump’s bosom buddy… so maybe we need to stop referring to Trump’s part as “Republicans.” They have almost nothing in common with Reagan’s GOP. They are MAGAns and nothing else.

What are the elected Democrats doing about this? For most of them, virtually nothing. Grassroots gatherings should be all they need to plan million-voter marches across the land, but no… nothing. The MAGAns in Congress now believe that they can skip the 60-vote requirement in the Senate to pass their billionaire tax cuts and cement their rightwing agenda into our laws… by using the “continuing resolution” mechanism in the Congress, where the 60-vote Senate rule does not apply to budget reconciliation between the Senate and the House. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer already led a small Democratic contingent to pass the budget extension… so… 

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am ashamed of my country as it implements MAGA conspiracy theories and power grabs in lieu of constitutionally supportable legislation and governance… and I am absolutely horrified by the Democratic Party flailing without the necessary leadership or willingness to fight back!