Dem loathing of Trump caused them to miss the inflation and immigration stew, that cost them the election. That pattern is repeating. Only now Musk has expanded the target, as his merry band of tech wizards, uncover massive waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government.
Inexplicably, no Dem has labeled the allegations erroneous. The only Dem response has been to squeal Musk is unelected, and USAID is a tiny portion of the budget. Both allegations are true, but neither is likely to save Dems from the fallout, that may well be the new Blue political lethal injection.
Most Americans have long assumed government spending was reckless and wasteful, now they know their assumptions were not only correct, but that the waste and fraud, were worse than imagined. In response, Dems have not offered reform, but defended the indefensible. Their plan of attack seems to be US Courts will , ultimately, prevent the review and audit of taxpayer expenditures, by a consultant to the President. Good Luck with that.
Firing federal employees may be more complicated than Reps understand, but if Dems expect this SCOTUS to rule one President can ensure federal employment for life of millions of fed employees, they are, likely, sorely mistaken. Besides firing needless fed workers is the intermission entertainment. The main event is Americans armed with a perpetual list of insane federal spending, in all its' glory. Right down to sex change operations in impoverished Central American nations, millions for Politico, BBC and Bill Krystal and Meals on Wheels for terrorists.
USAID is the tip of the Progressive iceberg. Wait until the books of the Dept of Education, Transportation and the DOD, . . . are opened. Dems are about to experience a nightmare that will last for years. Discussing, ad nauseam Liz Cheney's mythical arrest, the 2020 election and Jan 6, will not awaken them. Even in the event the wasted funding cannot be immediately ended, Americans will know how and where their dollars have been spent, and they will vote accordingly.
USAID has been the main of American assistance to distressed nations across the globe, helping save thousands of lives and serving as the major source of American soft power. I can see why you would hate it so. Like any major government program, there were some silly and even embarrassing elements within the allocations - but the great majority of grants represented long-standing American goals. Which is why Marco Rubio requested that their budget be increased in 2018. The largest recipient of U.S.A.I.D. was Catholic Relief Agencies, I await your assertion that they represent the embodiment of the lunatic left.
As for the assertion that they gave Politico millions, the actual figure is -checks notes- $24,000. The misinformation is staggering.
In two decades in New York, Trump cheated and stiffed hundreds and possibly thousands of contractors and business partners, including my uncle. The result was the failure of nearly all his companies and the refusal of the New York banks to lend him any funds. He is now bringing his act - cruel, petty and, above all, inconsistent to the world. The result is that the rest of the world will find other partners -primarily the Chinese- and slowly and steadily ignore and isolate the US, which will continue its inexorable decline. Great, indeed.
My point is that Dem loathing of Trump, handed Reps the election, because Dems were, literally, too blinded by their hatred, to think rationally. Dems are committing the same mistake. They have not released a list of worthwhile USAID programs, while admitting many programs were wasteful. They are too busy calling for Musk's head on a stick.
With a straight face, a Dem Senator defended $20 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, because it teaches values? Great, then dub Sesame Street reruns with local languages. It will cost a few thousand dollars, not $20 million. The Politico subscriptions were spread across government. No one cares. They care millions of taxpayer dollars, were unnecessarily spent, to prop up Left Wing publishing. Just as Americans do not care, USAID is only a tiny portion of the budget.
Am not familiar with Catholic Relief Agencies per se, but as a Texan, know Catholic Charities well. CC has been paid billions in tax payer dollars, not to just resettle migrants, but to initiate and facilitate their moves. CC has (or had) physical facilities in Mexico and elsewhere, where they appear to have recruited, potential migrants. CC arranged travel, after informing migrants of the multitude of US tax payer funded programs awaiting them, food, clothing, shelter in luxury hotels, transportation, education, phones, laundry service . . . Whatever their origins, Catholic Charities spent the last 4 years in the people trafficking business, without any accountability, and with American taxpayers as their unwitting financiers. When CC payments are revealed, in detail, Dems want to be standing far away.
I am sorry about your uncle, truly, but Trump is not the issue. He is a term limited, old man, but he pulled back the curtain. Americans will never forget, what they have seen. Dems should be calling press conferences, contritely admitting the orgy of waste, and begging not to throw the baby, out with the bathwater. It is a skill Dems will need often, in the coming few years.
Finally, Dems should realize, while Courts may slow RIFs, or the the quick end of actual departments, they will never prevent Americans from being informed, as to how and where the bulk of their tax dollars are spent. Dems are left with only two avenues. They can apologize, support the audits and propose reforms, or inform Americans the Dem Party believes tax payers have no right, to know where and how their tax dollars are spent, and there is no waste in government spending.
But even (some? most?) Republicans and Independents don't like Nazis, so Musk ain't gonna get much love from non-crazies. You write as if the administration is just a solid, conservative, process-oriented group focused on executing a traditional GOP agenda. That's purposefully ignoring some major frightening underlying stuff.
We have been told heretofore that the federal bureaucracy is fundamentally unmoveable. Guess we're finding out -- thanks to Musk et al -- that it can be moved. That's good news if done productively, and the real question(s) should be is whether any particular action is productive. Barack Obama was right when he said elections have consequences and the bureaucracy has no inherent right/duty to shield the American people from the consequences of choosing Republicans in elections. While I concur that the scalpel is usually preferable to the axe, the axe may be warranted in some instances. My read is that the electorate recently signed on for some axing.
It dodges congressional questions about money that went to sex traffickers and the Wuhan virus lab.
By Joni Ernst
Feb. 9, 2025
In moments of crisis, America can be counted on for leadership. Our nation’s compassionate giving has saved millions of lives around the world that were at risk from starvation or disease. All Americans should be able to take great pride in our generosity. And the government agencies coordinating aid efforts should be eager to share details about how they’re using taxpayers’ money to make the world a better place.
Yet the U.S. Agency for International Development, entrusted with disbursing tens of billions of aid dollars to other nations annually, is a rogue bureaucracy. I’ve uncovered that the agency often acts at odds with our nation’s best interests and uses intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it’s being spent and why.
USAID repeatedly rebuffed my requests for a list of recipients of U.S. tax dollars sent to Ukraine, claiming that the information was classified. Despite the pushback, I persisted. Eventually, USAID permitted my staff to review documents under surveillance in a highly secure room at USAID headquarters, with note-taking prohibited.
What warranted such secrecy? We learned that the aid that was supposed to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
I faced the same stonewalling from USAID when I asked about tax dollars being diverted from project missions for largely unrelated costs, known as the negotiated indirect cost rate. The agency claimed that it wasn’t possible to track. My team debunked that by providing USAID staff with a link to a public database. The agency fired back, warning that divulging this information would violate federal laws, including the Economic Espionage Act.
When I launched a formal investigation in cooperation with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, USAID relented. Turns out, the agency is allowing grantees to skim significant amounts of money, up to and even beyond half of the total, for themselves.
We need guarantees that U.S. assistance is helping people in need, but a recent review by the agency’s own inspector general found USAID still “does not have proper documentation to support indirect costs charged” by grant recipients.
I shouldn’t have to ask these questions. All federal spending is required to be publicly available on the website USAspending.gov, a searchable database created nearly two decades ago by a bipartisan law.
USAID’s sketchy spending schemes were the impetus for this law aimed at making federal funding more transparent. Congressional investigators in 2005 caught the agency supporting an organization involved with the trafficking of teenage girls in Asia. USAID staff called the claims “destructive” and vehemently denied them. The evidence proved otherwise. A pass-through group, set up with the help of former agency employees, was found funneling U.S. tax dollars into abetting the sex trade operation.
The agency has learned to exploit loopholes in the law, as my investigation into the origins of the pandemic exposed. The watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project was the first to release evidence that both USAID and Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were financing bat studies involving coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Yet no grants to the Chinese lab appeared in USAspending.gov. Audits later uncovered that more than a million dollars from the U.S. government were paying for the dangerous research. The bulk of the money was provided by USAID, not Dr. Fauci.
USAID evaded the obligation to report this transaction to USAspending.gov by using multiple pass-through organizations, including the nefarious EcoHealth Alliance, which is now barred from receiving U.S. government grants.
What was our international development agency developing at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology? If the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are correct that the Covid virus likely originated from a lab leak, USAID may have had a hand in a once-in-a-century pandemic that claimed the lives of millions.
There’s no shortage of other questionable USAID projects. More than $9 million intended for civilian food and medical supplies in Syria ended up in the hands of violent terrorists. Another $2 million was spent promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation the State Department warns against traveling to due to the risks of terrorism, kidnapping and unexploded land mines. USAID spent millions of dollars paying people to dig irrigation ditches in Afghanistan and encouraging farmers to grow food crops instead of poppies for opium. The result: Poppy cultivation nearly doubled.
Many other groups supported by USAID are doing great work, such as caring for orphans and people living with HIV. Imagine how much more good work could be supported with the dollars that instead ended up enriching terrorists, sex traffickers, mad scientists and drug cartels.
After keeping its spending records hidden from Congress and taxpayers, USAID employees are now protesting the review of the agency’s records by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. It’s no surprise that Washington insiders are more upset at DOGE for trying to stop wasteful spending than at USAID for misusing tax dollars.
The question we should be asking isn’t why USAID’s grants are being scrutinized, but why it took so long.
Ms. Ernst, an Iowa Republican, is founder and chairwoman of the Senate DOGE Caucus.
Al Gore led the reinventing of Govt and fired 150k employees and moved many jobs to contractors. That was done in a normal way by elected officials. Musk is not normal or elected. It's a coup.
I wish I could care about legal guardrails but scotus is bought and sold. We have NO checks and balances any more because we have a situation where one party controls all three branches of Govt and the officials are not willing to check the other branch. Our founders didn't plan for this takeover. It's a coup.
The Democrats are not built for hand in hand warfare. They want the norms and rules that govern(Ed) DC to come back. Those norms are long gone. Who in the Democratic Party will figure that out and fight fire with fire.?
Is it a coup only when Reps are in the majority? For fifty years the Dems had the majority in the Supreme Court. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they cry foul. Doesn't feel so good does it?
Well, if we have even awakened Joe Klein to the fact it only took Hitler 53 days to destroy the Weimar Republic - which a friend who was there at the time told me the vast majority of Germans didn't believe could happen and couldn't change their minds fast enough to prevent it - then we are making progress. Unfortunately, it not only can indeed happen here, it is happening.
Reading this, I am genuinely curious. The name of the substack is "Sanity Clause". This article is either an intentionally wildly hyperbolic, dishonest polemic screed of propaganda, or the author actually believes it, in which case he has completely lost his sanity. Trump campaigned, with Musk, on the promise to do what they're doing. The president has the power, under the Constitution, to do what he's doing. The people voted for him. How, in what universe, on what plane of mental gymnastics, is that "a coup"? In what upside-down fictional universe is an elected president carrying out the promises he made to the voters "democracy destroyed"?
As I said, I am genuinely curious if anyone, either the author or any reader in the deepest fever swamps of the far left, actually believes this, or if they just use this language as habit, knowing it's wildly inaccurate, because they think it will scare people into voting for them? Is screaming the most extremely exaggerated epithet possible actually what they consider a winning strategy? Still?
Assuming it's the latter, they truly have not figured out that it is precisely this wild-eyed caterwauling hysteria that has turned voters away from them. Nobody buys it. And some people who used to buy it don't anymore, which is why support for Trump (and Musk) has grown in the face of it. But they keep doing it.
It is clearly projection, accusing others of what they themselves have been demonstrably doing for years. But the question remains: do they actually believe it? Really. I want to know.
The way it appears to me is that these are people who have actually begun to live in a fantasy world, and actually believe it, even as they themselves create the fantasy. It's far left LARP-ing. Detached from any contact with reality, they tell each other stories, and they pretend the stories are real. No sane person with any actual knowledge of history would compare Trump to Hitler, but they do so as if it's totally normal and believable. It cannot be unrelated to their genuine belief that a man who declares himself a woman is actually a woman, and so forth. They think words and fiction are reality, and should be treated as such. If they call Trump Hitler, he is, even if in reality, he isn't.
But still, I wonder if some of them actually believe it. They act like they do. But do they? Are they really that far gone? Or is this just the desperation of losing, lashing out in irrational slurs that no one actually believes, because there is nothing else you can do?
Yes, I agree with you: the Dems have gotten into the bad habit of hyperboling EVERYthing.
It's not useful, but it doesn't matter, either: they are in the minority, and we are considerably in the majority, so they are just being silly.
Still, intriguing to consider what a coup IS. Even I called the USAID force-out a coup: because it was so fast and so comprehensive, so unexpected. I'm not sure that's a good use of words, though. A coup is generally understood to require force, like the ones that happen in Venezuela. Unless it's a "palace coup," which is what happened to Joe Biden when he was replaced on the Dem ticket. There was a coup in Sri Lanka recently which was sort of non-violent, if you don't consider the complete emptying of the presidential palace, but the president escaped and fled the country.
When could what Hitler did be called a coup? Obviously not right away --- he didn't hit the ground running as Trump has. It was the Reichstag Fire that started all that off, Feb. 27, 1933. He took over next day with Emergency Powers, a provision in Weimar law that was sort of a Roman dictatorship, but didn't manage to really get going for some months. For instance, Hitler tried very hard to convict communists in the parliament of collusion with van de Lubbe, the retarded youth who climbed in a window with red wax fire starters and set the fire. Hitler could not convince any of the court that they were involved, and they were not, but the communists in the government fled to Paris. The courts still maintained power for some months. I would say it wasn't till June/July 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, that Hitler actually did initiate a coup. And that was a very violent coup indeed, nothing at all like Trump is doing now.
People sure throw around loosely a lot of inappropriate terms. A coup requires violence. A civil war requires uniformed troops and generals. Otherwise, all you've got is politics and empty name-calling. The name-calling is furious and hateful because the Dems lost so bad.
The MAGA crowd is crazy, but the Dems are completely insane.
I’m pretty confident that Trump has two years to get anything done and then the Dems will take the House and we’ll be back to pointless impeachment proceedings. We’ll survive all of it.
Remember that Clinton defied the usual and INCREASED -- by a lot -- his House majority. So I am hoping the GOP will do likewise as people realize this administration is doing great and should be encouraged to keep it up after the midterms: and enabled to do it by winning the midterms.
*the success, the arrant affluence, has been so numbing that it has created a narcotic lassitude. You can’t have a democracy without citizens—active, engaged citizens—and we have too few of those.*
Bullshit. Turnout in 2024 was 64%, not quite 2020’s record 67%, but otherwise the best in two decades. By conventional measures we are more engaged in national affairs than at any time in recent history. The lazy voter trope allows the intelligentsia and donor class (of which I am a part) to escape accountability for our failures. We failed to grasp the magnitude of the moment.
There is very little Trump or Musk can do that can’t be undone with a smashing victory in the 2026 midterms, not of Democrats over Republicans, but of democrats (liberal ones, conservative ones, whatever) over authoritarians. The only question is whether this time we will meet the moment.
With respect, “ the intelligentsia and donor class failed to grasp the magnitude of the moment”? I seem to recall that the intelligentsia was engaged to the point of panic and possibly overreaction and the donor class could hardly have ponied up more. We lost because because we indulged the more “progressive” elements of our coalition, allowing them to define the much more moderate majority. That said, the strategy for 2026 remains clear: identify the corruption, care first and foremost for the working class, take them to court angain annd angain and win the bloody House.
Agreed. What I mean is that while screaming that democracy was at stake, we ]offered little to those outside our bubble who might join the fight, Similarly, our large donors ponied up, but often for projects with ideological strings attached, e.g., registering historically disadvantaged voters instead of just… voters, promoting diverse content in social media instead of just… creating the social media infrastructure to parry conservatives have built. Peace.
Lower case democrats defeated authoritarians in 2024. And they are doing it now with the dismantling of unelected state power. Question: who supported these things?
1. Covid lockdowns
2. Vaccine mandates
3. Government censorship of dissent through direct demands of social media platforms?
4. People being fired for their political opinions?
5. The state taking children away from their parents if the parents oppose gender transition?
6. Actually jailing political opponents? (Innocent J6 protesters, Trump himself)
7. Imposing policy on the people that they oppose through undemocratic means? (The courts, the bureaucracy)
Why always Republicans have their publican up their rear? I enjoyed the articles you have written even though we are not on the same page. I feel you are a person who is reasonable and someone who I could sit down with and discuss and argue agreeably, I hope. I have yet to vote for someone I was behind all the way, usually it is the lesser of weevils. I even voted for Reagan even though I did not agree with everything he believed. I voted for Trump because he was a senile old man whose administration was being carried out by...I'm not sure, but they sure messed things up. I really do not like Trumps foreign policy moves. Talk about stepping on all our friends toes. I agree, the Gulf of What? Wow glad we got that one straightened out. Sorry but I don't want to own Gaza, Greenland, or Canada.
I would like to spar with you, but your intellect is too vast for me. I just have old fashioned values. I left the new-fashioned values of the 60's in the late 70's after they about ruined my life and haven't looked back. Born Again but not perfect. Love Jesus, try to love others as much as myself. Give to charity regularly. Am a hypocrite, I sin every day in some way.
Why can't we just get along and talk to each other anymore?
While reading your article, it occurred to me who could stop Trump, cold. The Supreme Court. Assume for a second or two, that the members of the Court take their oaths seriously. The situation arises, like with President Andrew Jackson, President Trump decides to ignore a Supreme Court decision. The obvious answer in reply is for the Supreme Court to take a stand, namely, that until the order is followed, all Article III Judges will cease any and all appeals from the Federal Government. All other cases will move forward, including those against the Federal Government.
That would tilt the balance to those who oppose the present administration and its adherents.
Would it come to this, have no idea, but it is a broadside against an administration that decides to ignore its rulings. How things would fair from there is a complete unknown. Trump is not a fool, there are limits, and having lost the courts as a means of achieving anything is probably a price to high for him.
Serious question, please explain what is unconstitutional about a President employing a consultant, to review past taxpayer expenditures and inform American tax payers, how their hard earned dollars were expended?
It is probably a safe bet, Dems would have no problems with Musk reviewing cancelled checks, if Americans thought the money was well spent.
Your question ignores the aspect of privacy. The fear, justified or not, that someone whose place in the administration, is questionable, is looking into all payments, and may be able to see who pays what, is a violation of several laws. Checking to see who is getting what, without the knowledge of who the payor is should pass muster, the problem is we do not know with any certainty, what Musk is doing.
My answer to exploding heads, was just in general, to any of the many lawsuits, that are underway, against many of Trump’s EO’s. It was not an answer to any specific one. There are other questions being asked, and the Justice Department is treating those questions and lawsuits, with the seriousness they deserve. So at least for the moment, all is right and proper.
What Musk can and cannot do, still remains to be decided, most likely by the Courts.
We know who is paying, the taxpayers. It is always tax payer money. Why should the recipient, be entitled to any privacy? They are doing business with the US federal government. Other than perhaps matters of national security or those that involve informants, undercover operatives, or other criminal or military matters, why is it wrong for taxpayers to know how and where their money was spent?
Otherwise, Americans are blindly expected to kick in up to 40% of their earnings, with no right, whatsoever, to know how and where those dollars are spent? I would assume much of the information would already be public knowledge somewhere, or available under the Freedom of Information Act. Most citizens however, would never know where to look, or how to sift thru mountains of data.
An informed electorate, can make better decisions at the ballot box. It is surprising everyone does not seek that outcome.
The question remains, the person receiving the money has a right to privacy.
The government may be spending taxpayers money, but who the money is spent of deserves a share of privacy under the law. If there is a question of fraud, theft, false identity, those issues may be breached in the interest of justice, but absent that, people deserve the right to the money they are getting, whether it be social security, SSI, pensions, health care, and the list does go on and on.
The government spends a lot of money for a lot of different things, some is just not justified. To find those needles in the haystack, one needs a lawful reason, usually provided by a government attorney, judge, lawsuit, etc.
We know there is fraud, just how much, and by whom, is unknown. Musk has been able to get one part of the government to at least have to put down what the money is for, which previously was left blank.
It goes back to the basic idea that one is innocent until proven guilty and that the government does not have the right, without cause, to rummage through its many miles of files, to find a specific person, and be able to charge them, without having the information prior to the search, that they had been accused of doing wrong.
Dem loathing of Trump caused them to miss the inflation and immigration stew, that cost them the election. That pattern is repeating. Only now Musk has expanded the target, as his merry band of tech wizards, uncover massive waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government.
Inexplicably, no Dem has labeled the allegations erroneous. The only Dem response has been to squeal Musk is unelected, and USAID is a tiny portion of the budget. Both allegations are true, but neither is likely to save Dems from the fallout, that may well be the new Blue political lethal injection.
Most Americans have long assumed government spending was reckless and wasteful, now they know their assumptions were not only correct, but that the waste and fraud, were worse than imagined. In response, Dems have not offered reform, but defended the indefensible. Their plan of attack seems to be US Courts will , ultimately, prevent the review and audit of taxpayer expenditures, by a consultant to the President. Good Luck with that.
Firing federal employees may be more complicated than Reps understand, but if Dems expect this SCOTUS to rule one President can ensure federal employment for life of millions of fed employees, they are, likely, sorely mistaken. Besides firing needless fed workers is the intermission entertainment. The main event is Americans armed with a perpetual list of insane federal spending, in all its' glory. Right down to sex change operations in impoverished Central American nations, millions for Politico, BBC and Bill Krystal and Meals on Wheels for terrorists.
USAID is the tip of the Progressive iceberg. Wait until the books of the Dept of Education, Transportation and the DOD, . . . are opened. Dems are about to experience a nightmare that will last for years. Discussing, ad nauseam Liz Cheney's mythical arrest, the 2020 election and Jan 6, will not awaken them. Even in the event the wasted funding cannot be immediately ended, Americans will know how and where their dollars have been spent, and they will vote accordingly.
USAID has been the main of American assistance to distressed nations across the globe, helping save thousands of lives and serving as the major source of American soft power. I can see why you would hate it so. Like any major government program, there were some silly and even embarrassing elements within the allocations - but the great majority of grants represented long-standing American goals. Which is why Marco Rubio requested that their budget be increased in 2018. The largest recipient of U.S.A.I.D. was Catholic Relief Agencies, I await your assertion that they represent the embodiment of the lunatic left.
As for the assertion that they gave Politico millions, the actual figure is -checks notes- $24,000. The misinformation is staggering.
In two decades in New York, Trump cheated and stiffed hundreds and possibly thousands of contractors and business partners, including my uncle. The result was the failure of nearly all his companies and the refusal of the New York banks to lend him any funds. He is now bringing his act - cruel, petty and, above all, inconsistent to the world. The result is that the rest of the world will find other partners -primarily the Chinese- and slowly and steadily ignore and isolate the US, which will continue its inexorable decline. Great, indeed.
My point is that Dem loathing of Trump, handed Reps the election, because Dems were, literally, too blinded by their hatred, to think rationally. Dems are committing the same mistake. They have not released a list of worthwhile USAID programs, while admitting many programs were wasteful. They are too busy calling for Musk's head on a stick.
With a straight face, a Dem Senator defended $20 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, because it teaches values? Great, then dub Sesame Street reruns with local languages. It will cost a few thousand dollars, not $20 million. The Politico subscriptions were spread across government. No one cares. They care millions of taxpayer dollars, were unnecessarily spent, to prop up Left Wing publishing. Just as Americans do not care, USAID is only a tiny portion of the budget.
Am not familiar with Catholic Relief Agencies per se, but as a Texan, know Catholic Charities well. CC has been paid billions in tax payer dollars, not to just resettle migrants, but to initiate and facilitate their moves. CC has (or had) physical facilities in Mexico and elsewhere, where they appear to have recruited, potential migrants. CC arranged travel, after informing migrants of the multitude of US tax payer funded programs awaiting them, food, clothing, shelter in luxury hotels, transportation, education, phones, laundry service . . . Whatever their origins, Catholic Charities spent the last 4 years in the people trafficking business, without any accountability, and with American taxpayers as their unwitting financiers. When CC payments are revealed, in detail, Dems want to be standing far away.
I am sorry about your uncle, truly, but Trump is not the issue. He is a term limited, old man, but he pulled back the curtain. Americans will never forget, what they have seen. Dems should be calling press conferences, contritely admitting the orgy of waste, and begging not to throw the baby, out with the bathwater. It is a skill Dems will need often, in the coming few years.
Finally, Dems should realize, while Courts may slow RIFs, or the the quick end of actual departments, they will never prevent Americans from being informed, as to how and where the bulk of their tax dollars are spent. Dems are left with only two avenues. They can apologize, support the audits and propose reforms, or inform Americans the Dem Party believes tax payers have no right, to know where and how their tax dollars are spent, and there is no waste in government spending.
Maybe true.
But even (some? most?) Republicans and Independents don't like Nazis, so Musk ain't gonna get much love from non-crazies. You write as if the administration is just a solid, conservative, process-oriented group focused on executing a traditional GOP agenda. That's purposefully ignoring some major frightening underlying stuff.
You mean Bill Kristol the TSD guy not Billy Crystal the comedian in when Harry met Sally…
We have been told heretofore that the federal bureaucracy is fundamentally unmoveable. Guess we're finding out -- thanks to Musk et al -- that it can be moved. That's good news if done productively, and the real question(s) should be is whether any particular action is productive. Barack Obama was right when he said elections have consequences and the bureaucracy has no inherent right/duty to shield the American people from the consequences of choosing Republicans in elections. While I concur that the scalpel is usually preferable to the axe, the axe may be warranted in some instances. My read is that the electorate recently signed on for some axing.
Axing beaurocracy is different than axing democracy. Agencies are exec's purview; courts and laws are not.
Has there already been a coup?…. Yes, but by the bureaucracy over decades.
Sen. Joni Ernst: USAID Is a Rogue Agency
It dodges congressional questions about money that went to sex traffickers and the Wuhan virus lab.
By Joni Ernst
Feb. 9, 2025
In moments of crisis, America can be counted on for leadership. Our nation’s compassionate giving has saved millions of lives around the world that were at risk from starvation or disease. All Americans should be able to take great pride in our generosity. And the government agencies coordinating aid efforts should be eager to share details about how they’re using taxpayers’ money to make the world a better place.
Yet the U.S. Agency for International Development, entrusted with disbursing tens of billions of aid dollars to other nations annually, is a rogue bureaucracy. I’ve uncovered that the agency often acts at odds with our nation’s best interests and uses intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it’s being spent and why.
USAID repeatedly rebuffed my requests for a list of recipients of U.S. tax dollars sent to Ukraine, claiming that the information was classified. Despite the pushback, I persisted. Eventually, USAID permitted my staff to review documents under surveillance in a highly secure room at USAID headquarters, with note-taking prohibited.
What warranted such secrecy? We learned that the aid that was supposed to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
I faced the same stonewalling from USAID when I asked about tax dollars being diverted from project missions for largely unrelated costs, known as the negotiated indirect cost rate. The agency claimed that it wasn’t possible to track. My team debunked that by providing USAID staff with a link to a public database. The agency fired back, warning that divulging this information would violate federal laws, including the Economic Espionage Act.
When I launched a formal investigation in cooperation with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, USAID relented. Turns out, the agency is allowing grantees to skim significant amounts of money, up to and even beyond half of the total, for themselves.
We need guarantees that U.S. assistance is helping people in need, but a recent review by the agency’s own inspector general found USAID still “does not have proper documentation to support indirect costs charged” by grant recipients.
I shouldn’t have to ask these questions. All federal spending is required to be publicly available on the website USAspending.gov, a searchable database created nearly two decades ago by a bipartisan law.
USAID’s sketchy spending schemes were the impetus for this law aimed at making federal funding more transparent. Congressional investigators in 2005 caught the agency supporting an organization involved with the trafficking of teenage girls in Asia. USAID staff called the claims “destructive” and vehemently denied them. The evidence proved otherwise. A pass-through group, set up with the help of former agency employees, was found funneling U.S. tax dollars into abetting the sex trade operation.
The agency has learned to exploit loopholes in the law, as my investigation into the origins of the pandemic exposed. The watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project was the first to release evidence that both USAID and Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were financing bat studies involving coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Yet no grants to the Chinese lab appeared in USAspending.gov. Audits later uncovered that more than a million dollars from the U.S. government were paying for the dangerous research. The bulk of the money was provided by USAID, not Dr. Fauci.
USAID evaded the obligation to report this transaction to USAspending.gov by using multiple pass-through organizations, including the nefarious EcoHealth Alliance, which is now barred from receiving U.S. government grants.
What was our international development agency developing at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology? If the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are correct that the Covid virus likely originated from a lab leak, USAID may have had a hand in a once-in-a-century pandemic that claimed the lives of millions.
There’s no shortage of other questionable USAID projects. More than $9 million intended for civilian food and medical supplies in Syria ended up in the hands of violent terrorists. Another $2 million was spent promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation the State Department warns against traveling to due to the risks of terrorism, kidnapping and unexploded land mines. USAID spent millions of dollars paying people to dig irrigation ditches in Afghanistan and encouraging farmers to grow food crops instead of poppies for opium. The result: Poppy cultivation nearly doubled.
Many other groups supported by USAID are doing great work, such as caring for orphans and people living with HIV. Imagine how much more good work could be supported with the dollars that instead ended up enriching terrorists, sex traffickers, mad scientists and drug cartels.
After keeping its spending records hidden from Congress and taxpayers, USAID employees are now protesting the review of the agency’s records by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. It’s no surprise that Washington insiders are more upset at DOGE for trying to stop wasteful spending than at USAID for misusing tax dollars.
The question we should be asking isn’t why USAID’s grants are being scrutinized, but why it took so long.
Ms. Ernst, an Iowa Republican, is founder and chairwoman of the Senate DOGE Caucus.
So am I listening to what we might call the Democratic paranoids.
It ain't paranoia if it's true.
The Hunter laptop was true but just before 2020 it was called misinformation. Some people consider that clever (Dems), others not so much.
Al Gore led the reinventing of Govt and fired 150k employees and moved many jobs to contractors. That was done in a normal way by elected officials. Musk is not normal or elected. It's a coup.
I wish I could care about legal guardrails but scotus is bought and sold. We have NO checks and balances any more because we have a situation where one party controls all three branches of Govt and the officials are not willing to check the other branch. Our founders didn't plan for this takeover. It's a coup.
The Democrats are not built for hand in hand warfare. They want the norms and rules that govern(Ed) DC to come back. Those norms are long gone. Who in the Democratic Party will figure that out and fight fire with fire.?
Is it a coup only when Reps are in the majority? For fifty years the Dems had the majority in the Supreme Court. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they cry foul. Doesn't feel so good does it?
Well, if we have even awakened Joe Klein to the fact it only took Hitler 53 days to destroy the Weimar Republic - which a friend who was there at the time told me the vast majority of Germans didn't believe could happen and couldn't change their minds fast enough to prevent it - then we are making progress. Unfortunately, it not only can indeed happen here, it is happening.
I believe Liz Cheney was pardoned, though I’m sure Trump would try to prosecute if he could.
Reading this, I am genuinely curious. The name of the substack is "Sanity Clause". This article is either an intentionally wildly hyperbolic, dishonest polemic screed of propaganda, or the author actually believes it, in which case he has completely lost his sanity. Trump campaigned, with Musk, on the promise to do what they're doing. The president has the power, under the Constitution, to do what he's doing. The people voted for him. How, in what universe, on what plane of mental gymnastics, is that "a coup"? In what upside-down fictional universe is an elected president carrying out the promises he made to the voters "democracy destroyed"?
As I said, I am genuinely curious if anyone, either the author or any reader in the deepest fever swamps of the far left, actually believes this, or if they just use this language as habit, knowing it's wildly inaccurate, because they think it will scare people into voting for them? Is screaming the most extremely exaggerated epithet possible actually what they consider a winning strategy? Still?
Assuming it's the latter, they truly have not figured out that it is precisely this wild-eyed caterwauling hysteria that has turned voters away from them. Nobody buys it. And some people who used to buy it don't anymore, which is why support for Trump (and Musk) has grown in the face of it. But they keep doing it.
It is clearly projection, accusing others of what they themselves have been demonstrably doing for years. But the question remains: do they actually believe it? Really. I want to know.
The way it appears to me is that these are people who have actually begun to live in a fantasy world, and actually believe it, even as they themselves create the fantasy. It's far left LARP-ing. Detached from any contact with reality, they tell each other stories, and they pretend the stories are real. No sane person with any actual knowledge of history would compare Trump to Hitler, but they do so as if it's totally normal and believable. It cannot be unrelated to their genuine belief that a man who declares himself a woman is actually a woman, and so forth. They think words and fiction are reality, and should be treated as such. If they call Trump Hitler, he is, even if in reality, he isn't.
But still, I wonder if some of them actually believe it. They act like they do. But do they? Are they really that far gone? Or is this just the desperation of losing, lashing out in irrational slurs that no one actually believes, because there is nothing else you can do?
Yes, I agree with you: the Dems have gotten into the bad habit of hyperboling EVERYthing.
It's not useful, but it doesn't matter, either: they are in the minority, and we are considerably in the majority, so they are just being silly.
Still, intriguing to consider what a coup IS. Even I called the USAID force-out a coup: because it was so fast and so comprehensive, so unexpected. I'm not sure that's a good use of words, though. A coup is generally understood to require force, like the ones that happen in Venezuela. Unless it's a "palace coup," which is what happened to Joe Biden when he was replaced on the Dem ticket. There was a coup in Sri Lanka recently which was sort of non-violent, if you don't consider the complete emptying of the presidential palace, but the president escaped and fled the country.
When could what Hitler did be called a coup? Obviously not right away --- he didn't hit the ground running as Trump has. It was the Reichstag Fire that started all that off, Feb. 27, 1933. He took over next day with Emergency Powers, a provision in Weimar law that was sort of a Roman dictatorship, but didn't manage to really get going for some months. For instance, Hitler tried very hard to convict communists in the parliament of collusion with van de Lubbe, the retarded youth who climbed in a window with red wax fire starters and set the fire. Hitler could not convince any of the court that they were involved, and they were not, but the communists in the government fled to Paris. The courts still maintained power for some months. I would say it wasn't till June/July 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, that Hitler actually did initiate a coup. And that was a very violent coup indeed, nothing at all like Trump is doing now.
People sure throw around loosely a lot of inappropriate terms. A coup requires violence. A civil war requires uniformed troops and generals. Otherwise, all you've got is politics and empty name-calling. The name-calling is furious and hateful because the Dems lost so bad.
The MAGA crowd is crazy, but the Dems are completely insane.
I’m pretty confident that Trump has two years to get anything done and then the Dems will take the House and we’ll be back to pointless impeachment proceedings. We’ll survive all of it.
Remember that Clinton defied the usual and INCREASED -- by a lot -- his House majority. So I am hoping the GOP will do likewise as people realize this administration is doing great and should be encouraged to keep it up after the midterms: and enabled to do it by winning the midterms.
Hey, could happen.
Clinton lost 50 seats in 1994 and gained 5 in 1998.
Tell that to the 1000s of Govt worked fired for no good reason by Musk.
Why lead with a speculative NYT quote about an as-yet unproven act?
John Curry's grandson - a big fan of yours
Because, Emmet, it captured what is on people's minds...the speculation is all, right now. And please give your father my best.
*the success, the arrant affluence, has been so numbing that it has created a narcotic lassitude. You can’t have a democracy without citizens—active, engaged citizens—and we have too few of those.*
Bullshit. Turnout in 2024 was 64%, not quite 2020’s record 67%, but otherwise the best in two decades. By conventional measures we are more engaged in national affairs than at any time in recent history. The lazy voter trope allows the intelligentsia and donor class (of which I am a part) to escape accountability for our failures. We failed to grasp the magnitude of the moment.
There is very little Trump or Musk can do that can’t be undone with a smashing victory in the 2026 midterms, not of Democrats over Republicans, but of democrats (liberal ones, conservative ones, whatever) over authoritarians. The only question is whether this time we will meet the moment.
With respect, “ the intelligentsia and donor class failed to grasp the magnitude of the moment”? I seem to recall that the intelligentsia was engaged to the point of panic and possibly overreaction and the donor class could hardly have ponied up more. We lost because because we indulged the more “progressive” elements of our coalition, allowing them to define the much more moderate majority. That said, the strategy for 2026 remains clear: identify the corruption, care first and foremost for the working class, take them to court angain annd angain and win the bloody House.
Agreed. What I mean is that while screaming that democracy was at stake, we ]offered little to those outside our bubble who might join the fight, Similarly, our large donors ponied up, but often for projects with ideological strings attached, e.g., registering historically disadvantaged voters instead of just… voters, promoting diverse content in social media instead of just… creating the social media infrastructure to parry conservatives have built. Peace.
Lower case democrats defeated authoritarians in 2024. And they are doing it now with the dismantling of unelected state power. Question: who supported these things?
1. Covid lockdowns
2. Vaccine mandates
3. Government censorship of dissent through direct demands of social media platforms?
4. People being fired for their political opinions?
5. The state taking children away from their parents if the parents oppose gender transition?
6. Actually jailing political opponents? (Innocent J6 protesters, Trump himself)
7. Imposing policy on the people that they oppose through undemocratic means? (The courts, the bureaucracy)
Who’s the authoritarian again?
Correct. We noticed. We voted for the other guys, not the bad guys.
Why always Republicans have their publican up their rear? I enjoyed the articles you have written even though we are not on the same page. I feel you are a person who is reasonable and someone who I could sit down with and discuss and argue agreeably, I hope. I have yet to vote for someone I was behind all the way, usually it is the lesser of weevils. I even voted for Reagan even though I did not agree with everything he believed. I voted for Trump because he was a senile old man whose administration was being carried out by...I'm not sure, but they sure messed things up. I really do not like Trumps foreign policy moves. Talk about stepping on all our friends toes. I agree, the Gulf of What? Wow glad we got that one straightened out. Sorry but I don't want to own Gaza, Greenland, or Canada.
I would like to spar with you, but your intellect is too vast for me. I just have old fashioned values. I left the new-fashioned values of the 60's in the late 70's after they about ruined my life and haven't looked back. Born Again but not perfect. Love Jesus, try to love others as much as myself. Give to charity regularly. Am a hypocrite, I sin every day in some way.
Why can't we just get along and talk to each other anymore?
While reading your article, it occurred to me who could stop Trump, cold. The Supreme Court. Assume for a second or two, that the members of the Court take their oaths seriously. The situation arises, like with President Andrew Jackson, President Trump decides to ignore a Supreme Court decision. The obvious answer in reply is for the Supreme Court to take a stand, namely, that until the order is followed, all Article III Judges will cease any and all appeals from the Federal Government. All other cases will move forward, including those against the Federal Government.
That would tilt the balance to those who oppose the present administration and its adherents.
Would it come to this, have no idea, but it is a broadside against an administration that decides to ignore its rulings. How things would fair from there is a complete unknown. Trump is not a fool, there are limits, and having lost the courts as a means of achieving anything is probably a price to high for him.
Serious question, please explain what is unconstitutional about a President employing a consultant, to review past taxpayer expenditures and inform American tax payers, how their hard earned dollars were expended?
It is probably a safe bet, Dems would have no problems with Musk reviewing cancelled checks, if Americans thought the money was well spent.
This could be acceptable, although the consultant should use legal methods to perform the review.
Your question ignores the aspect of privacy. The fear, justified or not, that someone whose place in the administration, is questionable, is looking into all payments, and may be able to see who pays what, is a violation of several laws. Checking to see who is getting what, without the knowledge of who the payor is should pass muster, the problem is we do not know with any certainty, what Musk is doing.
My answer to exploding heads, was just in general, to any of the many lawsuits, that are underway, against many of Trump’s EO’s. It was not an answer to any specific one. There are other questions being asked, and the Justice Department is treating those questions and lawsuits, with the seriousness they deserve. So at least for the moment, all is right and proper.
What Musk can and cannot do, still remains to be decided, most likely by the Courts.
We know who is paying, the taxpayers. It is always tax payer money. Why should the recipient, be entitled to any privacy? They are doing business with the US federal government. Other than perhaps matters of national security or those that involve informants, undercover operatives, or other criminal or military matters, why is it wrong for taxpayers to know how and where their money was spent?
Otherwise, Americans are blindly expected to kick in up to 40% of their earnings, with no right, whatsoever, to know how and where those dollars are spent? I would assume much of the information would already be public knowledge somewhere, or available under the Freedom of Information Act. Most citizens however, would never know where to look, or how to sift thru mountains of data.
An informed electorate, can make better decisions at the ballot box. It is surprising everyone does not seek that outcome.
The question remains, the person receiving the money has a right to privacy.
The government may be spending taxpayers money, but who the money is spent of deserves a share of privacy under the law. If there is a question of fraud, theft, false identity, those issues may be breached in the interest of justice, but absent that, people deserve the right to the money they are getting, whether it be social security, SSI, pensions, health care, and the list does go on and on.
The government spends a lot of money for a lot of different things, some is just not justified. To find those needles in the haystack, one needs a lawful reason, usually provided by a government attorney, judge, lawsuit, etc.
We know there is fraud, just how much, and by whom, is unknown. Musk has been able to get one part of the government to at least have to put down what the money is for, which previously was left blank.
It goes back to the basic idea that one is innocent until proven guilty and that the government does not have the right, without cause, to rummage through its many miles of files, to find a specific person, and be able to charge them, without having the information prior to the search, that they had been accused of doing wrong.