DOGE Update

In the aftermath of the inauguration of Donald Trump we've witnessed the exiling of DOGE Bro Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk's waffling on his promise of $2 trillion of government spending cuts.   

I have two DOGE updates:  Privacy and Theatrics.

Last week we learned that a federal judge halted access to the US Treasury's payment systems by Elon Musk's team of DOGE apparatchiks. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 state attorneys general accusing the president of failing to faithfully execute the nation's laws when he granted DOGE unfettered access to the federal payments system.

The White House had previously defended the DOGE's access as READ-ONLY, yet in the ruling the judge specifically invoked the Watergate Era Privacy Act of 1974, which states:  no agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person or to another agency.  

Let me begin by making abundantly clear I'm all about rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.  I embrace audits that adhere to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. I believe in accountability. I place a high value on transparency. I hold close Reagan's admonition to Trust, But Verify.  Privacy is at the top of my list; which happens to be why I applaud the court ruling.

I would not voluntarily release my tax returns, charitable contributions, investment account and banking information, social security records, medicare details (including health records) or any other personal identifiers or privileged information to anyone without my prior written consent and assurance this information would be safeguarded.  

Rooting out fraud while simultaneously erecting appropriate firewalls to protect the integrity of a citizen's privileged personalty are not mutually exclusive. In my previous life my employer guarded this same information on behalf of their clients as if it were the Crown Jewels.  A security breach was always on the short list of of existential risks facing any financial services firm.  

To-wit, a couple of my MAGA pals think I'm nuts.  I'm overreacting.  Between you and me, for a couple of guys who howl at every opportunity about their impeccable conservative credentials; privacy ranks close to the bottom of priorities.

Go figure.  

Considering that Mr. Musk hasn't passed senate review or approval, has not received a security clearance, issued written ethics guidelines, or defined for anybody what he and his team intend to do with this data; naturally many of us have concerns.  Will they safeguard your identity?  Share it with whomever they please?  Retain it indefinitely?  Sell it?  Blackmail people with it? 

The question to you, dear readers, is the defense of personal information unreasonable?  

Would YOU voluntarily release the foregoing to Elon Musk without reservation?

Ponder that.

Meanwhile, DOGE has dismantled a Federal agency - USAID.  I've substituted a WIKI web link as the official .Gov website has been disappeared.  Meanwhile the name of the agency has been stricken from the building.  

Image - NBC

To be clear, the loss of USAID has no direct impact on my life so I don't have a dog in this fight.  Although I wonder if this signifies that we've thrown-in the towel on soft-power influence in response to stuff like Communist Red China's Belt and Road initiative, or North Korean and Soviet designs on African natural resources. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I want to highlight the messaging power of what is known in political vernacular as a Play to the Base*  

Both Democrats and Republicans engage in these dramatic flourishes; and in this instance Elon Musk is championed for slaying the Great White Whale of foreign aid corruption.  Apologies for the Herman Melville metaphor but Trump is a master of this sort of theater.  

Consider this:

As crazy as it sounds opinion polling suggests that a plurality of Americans believe anywhere from 25 to 31 percent of the entire federal budget is foreign aid.  Wasteful fraud and abuse.  Every last damn dollar going to ungrateful heathens.  Naturally, that belief is fallacious because it is opinion and not fact.  US foreign aid (economic, nutrition, health and military) has historically hovered around 1% of the entire US budget; with USAID a small part of that total.  I've blogged about this before.

2023 aid managed by USAID totaled about $40 billion. You and I would likely agree that this sounds like a king's ransom to an average American; correct?  Yet in the grand scheme of our federal budget it is pocket change in the government's couch cushions.

If you unpack the numbers in the context of the entirety of the federal budget the savings amounts to 2% of Elon Musk's $2 trillion savings boast. 

Considering the context of erasing an entire agency; and assuming Washington never feeds another hungry Sub-Saharan child, vaccinates any heathens suffering an epidemic or offers any similar disaster aid these savings become basically permanent.  I take no issue that they are savings.  They are permanently exceedingly small.  

Even so, in the eyes of Trump supporters Musk is a Giant Killer.  

The melodrama of sweeping furloughs of slothful and ungrateful government workers, the erasure of an entire agency along with the trope of chiseling the name from the facade of the empty building is as close as you can get to modern-day angry Jesus giving the money changers the heave-ho from the temple.  

The theatrics are priceless.

So, let's agree this scalp in Musk's belt in only the first three weeks of the administration is yeoman's work. Or is it like the Battle of the Greasy Grass?  Spoiler Alert: The plains Indians took many scalps and still lost the war.

Ask yourself this:

Is the DOGE willing to hunt and scalp the prize 800 pound gorilla?

Or the administration to settle on collecting some small scalps for Reality TV* and forfeit the war?

Only time will tell.

Pro Tip Alert!  Be sure to stock-up on popcorn and adult beverages.  Both a Budget Reconciliation and the Debt Ceiling are in the on-deck circle.  I'm told it's gonna be easy peasy as Trump controls both Houses of Congress.

 

Useful Idiot?

A couple of weeks ago Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down with Tucker Carlson for an interview.  I finally got around to watching it myself.

Having been critical over the years of those who are cozy with the former KGB Colonel I was curious as to what Carlson was going to say and what the interview might reveal.  Heretofore, Carlson has been largely critical of any aid or support for Ukraine's defense.  In November of 2019 he said he was rooting for Russia.  Since Putin launched his war on Ukraine almost two years ago Carlson has been supportive of Putin and claimed (without any evidence) that financial support for Ukraine went to Ukrainian President Zelensky and his wife.  Let me be clear, Carlson is not a journalist; he's a commentator.  I wanted to watch the interview in its entirety and form an opinion afterward.

Key takeaways include the following:

In a rambling forty minute homily Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine arguing that Russia has a historic claim to much of western Ukraine reaching back to the 13th century.  And that Ukrainian territory bordering the Black Sea has no historical connection to Ukraine whatsoever.

Furthermore, Putin claimed that it was Ukraine, following Russia's annexation of Crimea, that instigated the war in 2014.  He denied any responsibility for provoking hostilities.

Carlson did push back on Putin's revisionist history lecture including Russia's role in WWII and the formation of the Soviet Union asking what history had to do with what happened a couple of years ago.

Putin also complained about the eastern expansion of NATO and that Russia had to push back against this expansion; again. leading up to the war in Ukraine.

Finally, Putin played the Nazi card claiming that one of Russia's goals is the de-Nazification of and prohibition of Neo-Nazi movements in Ukraine.

Carlson asked Putin if he has evidence supporting the claim that the CIA was responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea.  Putin offered no tangible evidence but claimed that Russia should look for someone who's interested and has capabilities.

Asked if Putin would be willing to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Putin told Carlson a prisoner exchange would probably lead to his release and is essentially controlled by the US authorities.

So, was this a propaganda win for Putin?  A blockbuster interview for Carlson?  My sense is that Putin saw this interview as an opportunity to telegraph to the US that there is no further point to assisting Ukraine with more weaponry and financial support as the war will continue regardless.  Putin is in for the long term and is willing to wait, at least until after the 2024 election, with the hope that Donald Trump is returned to the White House.  I think Putin believes Trump and a far right congress will be more pliable and sympathetic to Moscow's narratives.  He views Americans as fundamentally weak.

And speaking of elections, Mr. Putin has a presidential election next month.  The outcome of which cannot be in any doubt.  That said, he has to play to his Russian audience as a leader with a global platform.  State-controlled media outlets breathlessly hyped Carlson's visit as if it were that of a head of state.

On balance I call this a win for Putin and given the state-sponsored lecture from one of the world's great villains; a disappointment for Carlson.  The interview was lame; it was one-sided and anticlimactic. 

I've never understood the far right's fatuous admiration and embrace of Putin.  Of course, I don't understand the far left's pro-Hamas love affair either.  I guess the fringe has a high tolerance for stone-cold killers and war criminals.  Which would explain why they're the fringe.

So, is Tucker Carlson a useful idiot?  Consider the history of this term.  It originally applied to Western intellectuals who naively supported the Bolsheviks and Soviets by ignoring the universal truths of a brutal dictatorship.  Stalin despised such people yet considered them helpful in advancing his message.  Yesterday the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was confirmed.  Until then I would have characterized Mr. Carlson as a garden variety Putin shill.  Today he has been promoted to useful idiot. 

Perform your own due diligence and watch the interview in its entirety here.  My readers are smart enough to draw their own conclusions.....