If you haven't already read it, click over to Coffee & Covid and read today's essay. It's a bit mind-blowing in its implications. I won't try to excerpt it here - just go read it there. It's worth your time.
Peter
The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!
If you haven't already read it, click over to Coffee & Covid and read today's essay. It's a bit mind-blowing in its implications. I won't try to excerpt it here - just go read it there. It's worth your time.
Peter
For years people knowledgeable about the situation in Washington D.C. have spoken of the "Uniparty" - politicians who work together regardless of Democratic or Republican Party affiliation to pursue common interests and common aims. It appears that members of the Uniparty have enriched themselves by feeding at the public trough for a very long time - unacknowledged, of course, and unimpaired by any sense of ethics or morals.
Now, however, the investigations by D.O.G.E. into the financial mess President Trump has inherited are bearing fruit - and, in the process, exposing the Uniparty's common organs. Datarepublican reports:
The seven NGOs in the chart below, in my view, represent the Uniparty. Each of these organizations receives substantial financial support from USAID or the Department of State. [Click the image for a larger, readable view.]
Around 2019, the phrase “democracy in danger” began to dominate public discourse, amplified by the media. This was odd—after all, the U.S. is a democracy (or more precisely, a constitutional republic). But as I traced the influence of these NGOs, a pattern emerged: they are controlled by establishment politicians, they play a major role in shaping political narratives worldwide, and their core mission is always framed as “protecting democracy.”
Originally, these NGOs were created to support U.S. democratic efforts abroad—many of them emerging during the Cold War to combat the spread of communism. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, their original purpose faded. Instead of dissolving, they redefined their mission. Now, they have positioned themselves as the guardians of democracy itself.
This shift explains why Trump’s re-election was framed as a "threat to democracy." To these NGOs, “democracy” means themselves. Their survival depends on maintaining that role, and any challenge to their authority is perceived as a direct attack on democracy itself.
. . .
Most of these NGOs were born during the Reagan years. While not all USAID and State Department funding flows through them, they control the purse strings for much of America’s global financial influence.
DEI initiatives created a system of unaccountability and dependency, which ended up injecting more money into them and further entrenches their power.
They see any challenge to their authority as a threat to democracy itself. But their greatest enemy is still the same one they've had since the Cold War—Russia. They've never lost the "Cold War" boomer mindset.
In their minds, they’re the superheroes keeping America from crumbling. And that entitles them to their travel perks, cushy post-election gigs, and all the other benefits that come with running an unacknowledged empire.
There's much more at the link.
The taxpayer funds allocated to each NGO for (presumably) one recent fiscal year (not specified) come to a total amount of no less than $1,027,930,770. That's one billion, twenty-seven million, nine hundred and thirty thousand, seven hundred and seventy dollars.
Who's it going to? Click over to Datarepublican's post and read the list of those running those seven NGO's. You'll see an awful lot of familiar politicians' names, from both sides of the aisle. Mitt Romney? Check. Elise Stefanik? Check. Steny Hoyer? Check. Donna Brazile? Check. They're all looking out for themselves and each other, and they have a billion dollars of taxpayers' money every year to do it with.
Folks, far too many of our politicians are robbing us blind, whether Republican or Democrat. We need to identify all those responsible, and kick them out of office as quickly as possible. If we don't, we deserve to lose everything they'll continue to steal from us.
Peter
The Telegraph in London has an interesting perspective on how President Trump is using the Democratic Party's own weapons against it (article may be paywalled).
Democrats created all the tools Trump is using to attack official Washington. Oops. They hoped to centralise power in the presidency and break through the old limitations of the 1787 Constitution. They largely succeeded after decades of effort.
What the authors of this transformation never expected was a president who would use the great powers they handed him to dismantle their own cherished projects. Yet that is exactly what Trump is doing.
This political ju-jitsu puts Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and their friends in a very awkward position. They grab the bullhorn to scream “no one elected Musk”. They’re right, of course. But then no one elected the bureaucrats they are defending, and they are far more insulated from control by elected officials.
. . .
The irony is unmistakable. Trump is using the powers of a strong White House to attack the administrative architecture built so laboriously by Democrats. Their progressive agenda is captured by the phrase “Living Constitution,” and was first articulated by Prof Woodrow Wilson (before he became president) and Herbert Croly. It began, in practice, in 1937, when the Supreme Court buckled to Franklin Roosevelt’s pressure and ruled that his new agencies and their regulatory actions were constitutional. Until then, the Court had ruled the other way.
After that, the largest steps were taken by Lyndon Johnson, whose Great Society programme created Washington’s complex array of bureaucracies. Barack Obama put the capstone in place with his healthcare legislation, a Democratic goal since Harry Truman.
These cumulative efforts shifted power away from the states and, within Washington, from Congress to the president and a proliferating array of Executive Branch agencies. The president could then govern by executive orders and regulatory actions by those agencies. Although Congress still passed laws, its principal role was reduced to overseeing those agencies (poorly) and approving engorged, consolidated budgets.
Only recently has this trajectory begun to change. That change is the core of the fight in Washington now. A more conservative Supreme Court has begun setting more stringent limits on bureaucratic discretion, both by eliminating deference to agency decisions and by requiring Congressional authorisation for major rules. Trump is acting along parallel lines. Together, these actions by the Supreme Court and a populist president are attempting to alter the long arc of a government that is increasingly centralised, intrusive, and bureaucratic.
The irony is that Trump and his team can take these giant steps, often unilaterally, only because they have grasped the tools created by Democrats and progressive advocates. Trump is using those tools in ways their architects never anticipated. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” as Monty Python said. Now, the Grand Inquisitor has arrived, wielding the very weapons Democrats gave him.
There's more at the link.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" . . . and I never thought to see that phrase used to describe an American President!
Peter
In mid-January I noted that California had implemented insurance "reforms" that would allow insurers to recoup losses in one part of the state (e.g. the Pacific Palisades fire) from all the insured in that state, by raising everyone's premiums, no matter where they live.
It now appears that something similar is happening across America, even if we live thousands of miles away from the disaster area.
Regulators in many states are allowing insurance companies to raise rates to cover the cost of events that insurers have had to pay elsewhere, as well as increasing the money for things like the rising cost of reinsurance, which insurance firms purchase to limit their risks of major catastrophic events.
“In a world where we have persistently large shocks, you’re getting big cross-subsidies across the country,” said Ishita Sen, a professor at Harvard Business School who was part of a team that conducted a 2022 study on the effects of costly disasters on homeowners insurance rates nationwide. “The past suggests that after big wildfires, other states have ended up paying for it.”
The Insurance Information Institute, an insurance industry trade group, disputes the study’s findings. It says that increases in rates come because insurers are judging the greater risks and costs across most of the country, not because homeowners’ premiums in one area are being used to pay for disasters in other regions.
. . .
Schneyer said some shifting of costs and risks is inevitable for large, national insurers, which benefit from customers facing different perils in different geographies. Asked about what he would say to someone in the Midwest paying more for hurricane risks along the Gulf and East Coasts, and fire risks in the West, he said that “they should hope if they need a new home because their home is destroyed by a tornado, or need a new roof that is damaged by large hail, their insurer would pay for that.”
“That’s risk-sharing. That’s how risk works in the insurance industry,” he added.
There's more at the link.
In the past, our insurance "markets" were apparently centered around the risks each area faced. States with a hurricane problem, or a tornado problem, or a wildfire problem, were typically grouped with other states facing the same dangers. The cost of a major natural disaster of that type were estimated and/or averaged, and that led to insurance rates matching the risks and costs involved. Now, however, it appears that all risks everywhere in the country are going to be costed and averaged in that way, so that my insurance premium in Texas is going to have to contribute something to the cost of rebuilding the Pacific Palisades suburb in Los Angeles, or pay for hurricane damage in Florida, or whatever.
In one sense, this is logical, because insurance companies operate on a national basis and need to cover themselves against national risks. However, it flies directly in the face of traditional insurance practices, which had states setting limits on how much premiums may be increased in the light of the risks that their in-state policyholders face. Can that state-by-state legislative/regulatory system continue if insurance companies are going to demand that customers in a low-risk state nevertheless pay premiums as if they were in a higher-risk area, to cover those who actually do live in such areas?
I don't pretend to know the answer to this. All I know is, I'm paying a lot more for property insurance than I used to, and I don't like it. It may become unaffordable, or add so much to mortgage costs that some properties become impossible to sell - because nobody can afford to pay both the mortgage and the insurance premiums each month.
Oy.
Peter
Tucker Carlson thinks so. Here he discusses the possibility with retired LtCol Daniel Davis. The video is keyed to start and end at the appropriate segment of their conversation, which is about five minutes in length.
That's a terrifying thought. What if a drug cartel, or a well-funded terrorist movement, bought a few MANPADS (man-portable ground-to-air missiles) and used them to bring down an airliner or two? They could shut down the entire commercial air market in a country, or even more than one country. The damage that would do to the world economy is catastrophic, to say the least.
I'm looking for more evidence to substantiate Mr. Carlson's claim that Ukraine is selling weapons on the black market. I'm not talking about rumor or innuendo - I mean hard evidence, like matching up serial numbers of weapons against shipments. If any reader has more information about that, please let us know in Comments.
Peter
Over the weekend, an article by Eko titled simply "Override" went viral across social media - and deservedly so. It's one of the best analyses and expositions of what President Trump's administration has done in the three weeks that it's been in office. Here's a brief excerpt from a long, complex article.
In Treasury's basement, fluorescent lights hummed above four young coders. Their screens cast blue light across government-issue desks, illuminating energy drink cans and agency badges. As their algorithms crawled through decades of payment data, one number kept growing: $17 billion in redundant programs. And counting.
"We're in," Akash Bobba messaged the team. "All of it."
Edward Coristine's code had already mapped three subsystems. Luke Farritor's algorithms were tracing payment flows across agencies. Ethan Shaotran's analysis revealed patterns that career officials didn't even know existed. By dawn, they would understand more about Treasury's operations than people who had worked there for decades.
This wasn't a hack. This wasn't a breach. This was authorized disruption.
While career bureaucrats prepared orientation packets and welcome memos, DOGE's team was already deep inside the payment systems. No committees. No approvals. No red tape. Just four coders with unprecedented access and algorithms ready to run.
"The beautiful thing about payment systems," noted a transition official watching their screens, "is that they don't lie. You can spin policy all day long, but money leaves a trail."
That trail led to staggering discoveries. Programs marked as independent revealed coordinated funding streams. Grants labeled as humanitarian aid showed curious detours through complex networks. Black budgets once shrouded in secrecy began to unravel under algorithmic scrutiny.
By 6 AM, Treasury's career officials began arriving for work. They found systems they thought impenetrable already mapped. Networks they believed hidden already exposed. Power structures built over decades revealed in hours.
Their traditional defenses—slow-walking decisions, leaking damaging stories, stonewalling requests—proved useless against an opponent moving faster than their systems could react. By the time they drafted their first memo objecting to this breach, three more systems had already been mapped.
"Pull this thread," a senior official warned, watching patterns emerge across DOGE's screens, "and the whole sweater unravels."
He wasn't wrong. But he misunderstood something crucial: That was exactly the point.
This wasn't just another transition. This wasn't just another reform effort. This was the start of something unprecedented: a revolution powered by preparation, presidential will, and technological precision.
The storm had arrived. And Treasury was just the beginning.
There's much more at the link, and it's all essential reading, IMHO. I can't recommend it too highly.
Eko has just published a follow-up article, "The Machine Fights Back: Inside Treasury's War Against Its Own Reformers". Here's another short excerpt.
Here's what Treasury didn't want exposed:
Over $100 billion flowing annually to accounts without Social Security numbers. No temporary ID numbers. No verification. Nothing.
When Musk asked Treasury officials how much was "unequivocal and obvious fraud," the answer revealed decades of corruption: HALF
Let that sink in.
$50 billion per YEAR.
A billion dollars every SINGLE week disappearing into accounts that shouldn't exist.
The kind of fraud that would shut down any bank in America.
The kind that would land any business owner in federal prison.
But Treasury had perfected its system:
1. Process payments
2. Ignore controls
3. Keep the machine runningYesterday, something shifted. A judge's order appeared, ex parte—meaning only one side could speak. No warning. No defense allowed. Just a wall erected between Treasury officials and their own department's data.
. . .
Think about what that means: The Secretary of the Treasury—effectively the CFO of the United States government—legally barred from seeing how money moves through his own department. The people's appointee blocked from viewing the people's accounts. Young coders mapping the missing controls ordered to stop looking.
The MACHINE (that’s what I’ll be calling the DS from now on) has judges. Has lawyers. Has media. Has entire states moving in coordination.
. . .
This isn't about spreadsheets anymore. This isn't about waste or controls or management. This is about who controls the machine.
Because when you find something like empty fields in Treasury's payment system, you're not just finding missing data. You're finding purpose. When basic controls sit blank while billions vanish weekly, that's not incompetence. That's design.
The machine is fighting back.
Again, more at the link, and also very important reading, IMHO.
This is essentially the conflict we're going to see across the Executive Branch going forward. The bureaucrats who administer the US government have done so on their own terms, using mechanisms they've created to make their jobs easier, without informing the public (or, in many cases, their political masters). Fraud and waste have been built into those mechanisms, because it's easier - less work for bureaucrats - to simply process payments rather than check on them line by line and expenditure by expenditure. That ease has, in turn, fostered monumental corruption, because politicians (by tolerating such lax bureaucratic systems, and indeed encouraging them) have opened gateways through which they, and their favored causes and groups and individuals, can skim the cream off government (i.e. taxpayer) income and divert it to their favored projects (not least of which has all too often been themselves).
The way to undo such bureaucratic systems and shenanigans is to expose them: to let the American people see what has been done in their name, and put it right through administrative and judicial means. Those who created such systems, and profited from them, seek the opposite: to keep them all hidden, to prevent them being exposed, so they can carry on grafting from the American people and enriching themselves and their favored causes and people.
The courts are going to have to do a lot of the work. The judge who barred the Treasury Secretary from doing his job is clearly partisan and biased, by any rational, objective standard. No judge has the right, in terms of the Constitution, to bar elected and/or duly appointed officials from simply doing their job (which by its very nature includes exposing and dealing with inefficiency, corruption and dishonesty). That's basic to our system of government - but in this case, the judge has ignored that. One hopes President Trump will ignore such unconstitutional court orders, or at least take them higher in the judicial system as quickly as possible.
Being a retired pastor and chaplain, I find a strong spiritual element in all this. In the Bible, the first chapter of the First Letter of St. John contains these words:
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
If that applies to Christian believers and their relationship with God, how much more should it apply to politicians and bureaucrats and their relationship with the electorate? The latter have done everything possible to avoid "walking in the light". President Trump and the D.O.G.E. team are doing everything possible to drag them, kicking and screaming, into the light. Only when they've succeeded in doing so will there be "fellowship" between Americans, mutual trust that neither side is trying to hoodwink or steal from the other.
Makes you think, doesn't it?
Peter
A somewhat unusual musical joke this morning, courtesy of In The Middle Of The Right, who posted this video. It's set to the Bee Gees' hit "Stayin' Alive" from the movie "Saturday Night Fever".
And, for those who don't remember the disco era, here's the original tune.
Mercifully, the disco era didn't last long.
Peter
In recent weeks, I've noticed an upsurge in comments that are vituperative, ill-tempered, downright profane attacks on other commenters, as well as very nasty things being said about certain politicians and political parties.
Folks, those comments are not going to be published here. End of story.
I've said many times that I try to keep this blog family-friendly. That means at least a basic level of politeness is required from those who wish to interact with other readers here. It's not difficult, and I don't think it's unreasonable. Simply "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". If you don't want to be referred to or talked about in foul, intemperate terms, please don't do it to others - and if you do want to be referred to or talked about in that way, I suggest you seek immediate psychiatric or psychological help rather than waste your time commenting here.
If that offends you, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. If you disagree, you're free to start your own blog and say whatever you please.
Peter
This absolutely boggles my mind. If it's true that Dr. Fauci sponsored and/or approved this research, then I suspect his evil may be beyond redemption. Watch this five-minute video, and prepared to be left speechless.
How many thousands - perhaps tens, or even hundreds, of thousands - of innocent animals were mutilated, drugged, tortured like this for no good medical reason at all?
I'm beginning to think I'd like to see one last government grant approved. This one would be to take every person in government who thought up, approved, paid for, or conducted such research to be arrested, confined in laboratory animal cages, and used for medical research - without benefit of anesthetic - until they die in the same misery they've inflicted on so many animals, and so many people.
Words fail me.
Peter
Courtesy of an article at Come And Make It, I came across this video. I found it interesting and informative; and, based on many years working in "the projects" from time to time, and volunteering at a homeless shelter, and working with prison inmates who pleaded poverty as an excuse for their crimes, I think it does a reasonable job at exposing why inner-city or "ghetto" poverty is a real issue.
Recommended viewing.
There's a lot more to poverty, of course, and much more that can be said. However, this video does a pretty good job of examining poverty in the context of the United States, and in particular of our cities. It doesn't give enough attention, IMHO, to the "poverty industry" of NGO's, consultants, therapists and others who make a good living out of "managing" or "addressing" the causes, effects and reality of poverty, without ever doing anything to resolve the issues they identify - because that would cut off their income, and nobody (at least, from their perspective) wants that.
How far can one go in helping the poor without making them so dependent on that help that they lose all incentive, all desire, to get out of poverty? How much can one give people without them coming to expect that everything in life is a "gimme", and nothing is "I've got to work to earn this"?
*Sigh*
Peter
Found in several places on social media. Click the image for a larger view.
Since, using the same criterion of birth, I'm also African-American (albeit with a strong side of Caucasian), that means I should be celebrating, too! I'm on it like white on rice . . . oh, was it indelicate of me to say that?
Peter
In ancient Rome, the poet Juvenal asked "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who will watch the watchmen?" or "Who will guard the guards themselves?"). Basically, it refers to the impossibility of imposing ethical or moral behavior when those responsible for enforcing it are themselves unethical or immoral.
We see this time and again when people in positions of trust betray that trust by preying on the very people they're supposed to help. Priests sexually abusing altar boys is a very well-known recent example (although it's not nearly as widespread as the mass media would like to pretend). Counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists and others are just as guilty. A recent case drives home the point.
A Canadian “kink-allied” psychologist who worked with vulnerable youth in Calgary is facing child pornography charges following his arrest on January 30 by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams’ (ALERT) internet child exploitation unit. Dustin Hrycun, 45, worked to treat both adults and troubled youth at Rising Sun Psychological Services.
Hrycun has been charged with possessing and disseminating child pornography through the online social media application Kik. Kik is a freeware messaging platform notorious for its use in facilitating in child sexual abuse.
. . .
Despite the ongoing investigation, Hrycun was released from custody into the community and is scheduled to appear in court February 25.
A now-deleted online profile posted to Psychology Today listed Hrycun as a “sex-positive,” “kink allied,” “queer allied,” “transgender allied,” and “non-monogamy” expert offering counseling services for teens and adults.
“I specialize in depression, anxiety, trauma, couples work, life transition, belief system struggles, religious trauma, existential and self discovery, and sexuality and gender issues. In being a survivor of conversion therapy I have a passion for helping people move through and past anything holding them back from living life unhindered,” reads Hrycun’s profile.
There's more at the link.
One of the things I hated most about the priest sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is that it led to at least suspicions in the eyes of most Catholics about most of their priests. One could be the purest, holiest, most upright and moral priest out there, but one still suffered from "guilt by association" that was very hard to shake. To call it demoralizing is the understatement of the century! It wasn't helped by bishops who uttered pious platitudes to their clergy about "this is part of sharing the suffering of Christ, who was also falsely accused". Those bishops were responsible for admitting the wrong people into candidacy for the priesthood, and educating them in some seminaries that became a hotbed (you should pardon the expression) for immorality and sin. See "Goodbye, Good Men" for a painfully accurate description of what many had to endure.
Tragically, the same infiltration of liberalism and secular humanism happened to the "caring professions" like sociology, anthropology, psychiatry and psychology. People were admitted to professional status, offering "support" to those in need of professional help, who should never have been allowed to practice. Because of that neglect, they ran rampant through the professions and hurt a great many people, some so severely that they may live the rest of their lives mentally and emotionally scarred beyond repair. Examples are legion: see, for one particularly evil case, pediatrician Earl Bradley.)
What this means is, if you're a parent or caregiver, you need to be hyper-sensitive to the potential dangers of taking a child to a particular practitioner or specialist for assistance. Most of them will be fine . . . but some of them will not. How to tell the difference is beyond my expertise, but I'd certainly do as much of a background check as I could. Have any complaints been made against them to their official licensing body? If so, what sort of complaints? How many? Were any sustained? Does the provider's premises, or his/her staff, or his/her customers, give off any "vibes" (for want of a better word) that make you feel uneasy? Do you talk with your child(ren) after taking them to such a professional, trying to get a feel for their reactions? Are they nervous or scared to talk about it?
It's a sick, sad, sorry world when we have to advise something like that. Sadly, it's the world we've got, and we ignore such precautions at our peril. Also, for the love of all that's holy, do not - I say again, DO NOT!!! - take your child to any specialist who advertises himself in the way that the suspect did in this most recent case. Just reading his profile, and how he describes himself, should make any sound, rational person steer their children as far away from him as possible!
Peter
"El Gato Malo", writing at Bad Cattitude, has a masterful essay on what we're seeing in Washington D.C at present, and why there's so much panic, anger and desperation on the part of the progressive left. Here's an extended excerpt. (Note that he/she does not use capital letters to begin sentences, so this may seem odd to more grammatically correct eyes, but that doesn't detract from the quality or accuracy of the message.)
DC is finally starting to see how much trouble it is in and people are freaking out. the moves are coming too fast for the news cycle to even keep up with. and DC has mostly already lost. all the high ground has been taken and now it’s just going to be about squeezing.
DOGE grabbed the OMB and the treasury payments system.
that’s it. lights out, game over.
the simple fact is this: half the permanent state is a massive grifter-plex of special interests running amok and waging war on we the people for their own benefit. it’s 1000’s of unelected anointed running groups like [the Acacia Center for Justice]:
they got $769 million back in 2022. their sole aim is to encourage illegal immigration and to make expelling such illegal aliens more difficult. it’s taxpayer money spent to create outcomes that most taxpayers would happily pay to avoid. it’s a jobs program for cronies and extra-governmental activism to subvert the basic sovereignty of the state and it’s ability to serve the demos.
there are innumerable groups like this. back in SF we called it “the homeless industrial complex.” they got huge budgets based on how many homeless people they “served.” but if they ever actually got them off the streets, they got less money. it was literally capitated. so they fed them, gave them money for drugs, and made it impossible to arrest them no matter what they did. they donated to politicians who favored that. the incentive were entirely perverse.
the circle of malfunction is like a plasmid for anti-social outcomes. it takes taxpayer money and uses it to fund agencies that create outcomes (like homelessness or illegal immigration) which taxpayers hate. these agencies then donate some of that taxpayer money to politicians who then force taxpayers to pay more money to solve the now larger problem.
lather. rinse. repeat.
and this is not even the awful part.
from ukraine to climate science to NIH to 100 different agencies like USAID, money is being funneled everywhere and stolen in wholesale quantities.
USAID and who knows who else were all out meddling for decades in foreign elections. they have probably been meddling in ours.
suddenly, these agencies are losing their minds about “declassification efforts.”
it certainly does make on wonder: why were they classifying anything at all? wasn’t this supposed to be aid?
. . .
and DC is finally realizing how much trouble they are in and leviathan is shrilling in terror and rage, but it’s already way too late.
threads are exposed, they will be pulled, and this is going to, for the first time in generations, tear the covers off these boxes and let us see what’s inside. and it’s not gonna be pretty friends. i’m telling you point blank: however bad you fear this was - it’s worse.
the middle of the american overton is about to see that government is 80% money laundering and unaccountable tyranny and theft by weight.
. . .
they are in absolute trauma that DOGE has access to the treasury payment systems.
i told you they’d find just the right place to put the lever and pry.
that’s it. OMB and payments. it’s the whole game, the commanding heights.
let me esplain, because what’s going on is brilliant:
OMB is the government’s HR department. the payments system is how the treasury actually sends out money, the pipes of payola.
these two systems touch everything in government. everything. all the jobs, all the money. every program and person passes through this at some point.
it’s the universal chokepoint.
so, everyone has to come into work now. let’s get your faces seen and learn what you do here. all the people who have had no-show sinecures for decades are going to get bounced out.
hey, where does the money go?
time to find out.
there is no way, even with AI to ferret out all these groups, their cutouts, their subterfuge and skullduggery. it’s too deep, too vast, too well hidden and camouflaged.
you cannot find them.
so you make them find you.
you shut the money off and see who squawks.
There's more at the link, and it's all worth reading.
There are relatively few Substack authors who I recommend, and even fewer worth (IMHO) the cost of a paid subscription. El Gato Malo is very rapidly climbing up that list. I may have to send some money his/her way as a "Thank You" for some outstanding writing and extremely important information.
While we're on the subject of misused and misdirected funds, consider the wider implications of shutting off the cash spigot. CNN was quick to complain.
The Trump administration’s freeze of foreign aid and dismantling of the agency that oversees it is putting at risk thousands of jobs in the US and abroad, industry sources told CNN.
The fallout is already being felt at kitchen tables around the country with hundreds, if not thousands, of aid workers dealing with the reality that they could be out of work because of the aid freeze and potential downsizing of the workforce at USAID, which has been de-facto subsumed by the State Department.
. . .
“People are losing their jobs, left and right,” a humanitarian official said. “There’s going to be a ripple effect.”
Federal contractors that are members of one Washington, DC-area trade association have racked up about $350 million in unpaid bills, forcing them to furlough some 2,000 staff in the area, a source familiar with the trade association told CNN.
Again, more at the link.
What CNN didn't say, and nobody on the left is prepared to admit, is that none of those jobs would have existed in the first place if it were not for the wholesale diversion of billions, even trillions of taxpayer dollars to third-party, non-governmental organizations. In other words, all those jobs, and all those expenditures, have been paid for out of our pockets, without so much as a "by your leave".
Therefore, all those complaining about the "loss of US jobs" are really saying that we should go on allowing the progressive left to steal taxpayers' money to subsidize all those unelected, unapproved, unconstitutional NGO's - because their employees will have to find legitimate, honest work if we don't!
My answer to that is short, not sweet, and unfortunately unprintable. I daresay many of my readers can come up with responses of their own. (Not in writing in Comments, please. This is - or tries to be - a family-friendly blog!)
Finally, let's remember that to many on the progressive left of American politics, what's going on right now is seen as truly a disaster, a calamity, a tragedy that's left them almost bereft of options. They are in despair, and some are describing the situation in dystopian terms. Here, for example, is a post on Reddit (since deleted, but saved for posterity by fellow author and friend Michael Z. Williamson, who posted a copy on social media). Click the image for a larger, readable view.
No matter how insane the author may sound to us, there are at least thousands, and probably tens or hundreds of thousands, who believe as she does at this moment. They are so unhinged they're unpredictable. I think we should expect assassination attempts against President Trump, Elon Musk, and other leading lights of the new administration. They're far from unimaginable.
Prayers for our nation would not be amiss, either. We need to clean out the Augean stables that Washington D.C. has become, but we need to do so without pulling down the country around our ears in the process.
Peter
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador may take some of the pressure off US jails and prisons.
All sorts of positives there:
Peter
I laughed my head off (well, almost) after seeing a news report yesterday, and an almost immediate response to it on MeWe.
The report concerned the USS Preble, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, testing its new laser weapon. The article included this photograph (click it for a larger view):
I was delighted to see this response on MeWe minutes later (sorry, I can't link to individual posts on that social medium):
Talk about a snappy response that perfectly fits the photograph . . .
Peter
Last week saw a number of outstanding developments for those of us who want the Deep State to become the Deeply (And Forever) Buried State. This meme has gone viral - I'm seeing it all over the place - and I entirely agree with it:
As I wrote in two articles last Friday:
News that makes me very happy!
Today I'd like to bring to your attention two bloggers who've covered important aspects of what we're seeing in Washington D.C. right now. First, HMS Defiant notes that this didn't just happen out of thin air. It was planned, and is proceeding according to plan.
One of the obvious-in-retrospect things that happened in the last couple of months was that a large number of people quietly came together in a very private setting where none stood out for their presence and they had themselves a sit-down strategy and policy meeting for how they would all act, in concert, on the first day and in the first hour of the new Presidency. As you look at the results it is obvious.
. . .
This was no ragtag feel their way slowly into their new powers and duties scramble, this was men and women, informed by some really sharp lawyers with all their writs ready and targets lists in their hands as they assumed their duties while waiting for the Senate to do its job and confirm the President's desired office holders. I really get a kick out of how this is played out.
The real activity was of course, playing out in the dark and in the various computer networks that actually control the ebb and flow of money, influence and power and while everyone was looking at the skimpily dressed showgirls twirling batons, DOGE took away ALL THE POWER OF THE STATE from the smug arrogant bastards that thought they had us by the balls since they controlled the levers and passwords to the promised land.
There's more at the link.
Next, Francis Turner takes a look at how much DOGE has already discovered during its investigation of the Federal bureaucracy. It's damning stuff. I won't be at all surprised to see a great many criminal charges emerge from this "deep dive" into how taxpayer money has been illegally diverted to partisan political ends.
Turns out that DOGE is getting access to the computer systems of various agencies and in the process causing much heartburn and people unexpectedly resigning for trying to stop them. The DOGE guys are clearly using that well know investigative adage - “Follow the money” - and to do that they need to see who paid whom under what authority in order to provide what.
However, what has been somewhat of a surprise is that previous news releases have allowed some journalists to find all kinds of interesting details about, say, USAID. This may help explain the panic behind DOGE getting access to their systems. Likewise open government laws have allowed a lady who Xeets as DataRepublican to build databases cross referencing government grants with various NGOs. With help from some others (I think), it looks like she has now put together a graphical tool that shows how money flows from the US government and then between the various NGOs to end up in some unexpected places ... These sorts of details from the public data suggest that when one gets access to the actual payment details some fascinating discovering will be made about where NGOs actually bank their cash and who they share with.
Again, more at the link. Mr. Turner provides several concrete examples of links between individuals who should have no right to public money, and the way in which public money was disbursed (through convoluted links and multiple transfers) for their benefit. It stinks to high heaven.
I note that the mainstream news media are providing little or no information about the shenanigans thus far uncovered. They're deliberately trying to shield the Deep State and its operatives from the consequences of their actions, and trying to make sure that left-leaning voters don't find out what their iconic political idols have been up to without telling them. I would go so far as to say that the entire Biden administration appears to have been focused on nothing so much as raping the public treasury for their own benefit and that of their fellow travelers.
Do please go and read both articles linked above, and follow the links they provide. If this is what's been discovered after only two weeks of the Trump administration, our mouths should be watering at the feast that's about to be unveiled.
Peter
How about a Jazz Age/Classical Age fusion to get your morning going? Here's George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue". The pianist is Khatia Buniatishvili, with the Orchestre National de Lyon conducted by Leonard Slatkin. This recording was made in 2017.
Peter