Trump’s Got Very Important Jobs For Vivek, Elon, And Marge
And they're definitely not busywork to keep them out of his weave!
In a sad-larious Opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Vivek “Pump ‘n Dump” Ramaswamy is all a-titter with excitement that he and new BFF Elon are going to be Wondertwins and save the government, by which they mean gutting it real good!
And Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the chair of the committee that banjo-strummin’ James Comer is going to make for them, for real, probably with its own special room down in the basement next to the vending machine. This plum pretend assignment surely has nothing to do with how Marge recently claimed she’s been covering up that members of Congress have been paying off victims of “sexual harassment and assault” with taxpayer money. It is definitely not Donya McTreason and House Republicans shaking a Very Important Made-Up Job at her like a bag of cat treats to make her forget about whose cousin boner orgy or coke-fueled naked hula-hoop party she might have to Madison Cawthorn to get some respect around there.
Anyway, Vivek’s first sentence: “Our nation was founded on the basic idea that the people we elect run the government.” Who elected him or Elon? Why, absolutely nobody! But their new committee — DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, get it? — headed by at least twice as many people as necessary, is gonna come in and cut all the costs. And then with all the savings from that and pulling out of NATO, we will feed hungry school children lunch, and house homeless veterans, finally. Ho ho ho, just kidding!
Some problems with this plan: The Executive branch can’t decide to not spend what Congress has decided the government is going to spend. And some non-government volunteer guy in a Tintin hairdo can’t come along and make up new departments, or “delete entire departments,” like he seems very convinced is a thing. DOGE won’t be a government department, it’s just going to be a couple of guys hanging out next to the copy machine.
But Pumpy Dumpty thinks that the Supreme Court will let them do what they want anyway, and also by forcing civil servants to not work at home anymore, lots of them will just up and quit, tap-your-big-brain meme!
And, he and Elmo will go door-to-door auditing the shit out of every department. Sure. Hey, aren’t those things already the jobs of the Office of Management and Budget, and/or the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency? Wouldn’t making up another group be not terribly efficient? Also didn’t Vivek run his one company into the ground? Never mind, Trump must find important snipes for his hangers-on to go a-huntin’.
Not mentioned in Viv’s Op-Ed but put in a Tweet: “We shouldn’t let the government spend money on programs that have expired. Yet that’s exactly what happens today: half a *trillion* dollars of taxpayer funds ($516 B+) goes each year to programs which Congress has allowed to expire. There are 1,200+ programs that are no longer authorized but still receive appropriations. This is totally nuts.”
Many of these programs are self-authorizing, by way of allocation, so, that’s not how it works. And, what programs might those be? Oh, just veterans’ health-care programs, drug research and development, opioid addiction treatment, the Justice Department, the State Department. No big.
And speaking of the OMB, ugh, here is Russell Vought again! The Christian Nationalist Project 2025 architect guy — not to be confused with the P2025 guy who allegedly beat a dog to death with a shovel, or the guy creeping on twentysomethings on his dating app, or the guys harassing government workers with FOIA requests in an attempt to ferret out who is woke — just got named to be the head of it, like he was during That Man’s previous term. And surprise, Vought already has a 180-Day Transition Playbook burning a hole in the pocket of his skinny jeans!
Hey, wasn’t there somebody else who also had a 180-day plan to take over the government? (Oh, right, Hitler.) Vought’s chapter is on page 75 of their Villain Manual; short version, he’s the guy who wants to get rid of Schedule F to purge federal workers and replace them with DEI for mediocre Trump-humpers who will take the Heritage Foundation’s loyalist pledge. His biggest turnoffs are “critical race theory,” abortions even in the case of rape or incest, and anybody talking about climate change. His turn-ons are memes like this:
And that’s it, he hates pretty much everything else, from the birds and the bees to the flowers and the trees. Oh, but Christian Nationalism, he does love that, thinks it’s gotten a bad rap. Wait, ladies, where are you going?
Won’t it be a party having Marge, Viv, and Elon telling him how to do his job! Just kidding, he’ll never be cool enough for them, and those guys don’t do actual work if they can possibly help it.
OPEN THREAD.
[Wall Street Journal gift link/ Washington Post gift link]
I'm making a Cornish hen for the first time. I have decided that living off microwaved food is not worth the time saved. Now that I ain't watching TV non-stop I have time for other things! Like cooking myself a decent meal. I got advice from a baked Chicken(ate my ballot) on how to bake a chicken. LOL.
Celtics in the White House, standing behind Biden, making him look short.