If you have any doubts about whether the Trump/Musk comedy team is honest and knows what it is doing, let’s disabuse you of those doubts. They aren’t and they don’t. Read the following article written by Carl Gibson in AlterNet:
But aside from the Coast Goard contract completed in 2005, the billionaire’s group has also committed several other glaring errors, casting doubt on the veracity of its claims of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.
“These are not savings,” government spending tracker Lisa Shea Mundt told the Times.
“The money’s been spent. Period. Point blank.
”
Out of all the budget cuts DOGE (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress) has taken credit for, Musk has said five particular cuts saved taxpayers $10 billion.
One contract for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that DOGE claimed was for $8 billionwas actually just for $8 million.
DOGE also erroneously counted a $655 million contract three times.
And the group also claimed to have cancelled a $232 million contract at the Social Security Administration, when in reality just one individual project was cancelled to the tune of $560 thousand.
Out of the $10 billion in purported cuts Musk claimed for these five line items, the actual savings was just $19 million,which is 99.8% smaller than the initial number DOGE proffered.
That’s a similar error to the Coast Guard contract, which was 99.7% less than what Musk claimed.
“It’s obvious that they don’t understand,” said Eric Franklin, who runs a firm that consults with the U.S. government on contracting procedures.
A $14 million contract with Franklin’s firm was actually on DOGE’s wall of receipts, even though it had been completed in 2021.
In just the first few minutes of the speech, Trump proclaimed that he won the 2024 election with “a mandate like has not been seen in many decades.”
New York Times reporter Kenneth Vogel pointed out that Trump won the popular voteby just a 1.48% margin, while Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama each had margins of victory of 4.45% and 7.27%, respectively.
This led Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) to stand up and shout that he has “no mandate to cut Medicaid.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) then ordered the House sergeant-at-arms to remove the longtime lawmaker from the chamber. Aaron Fritschner, who is the deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) posted the viral photoof Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) shouting during Biden’s State of the Union address with the text: “They weren’t removed.”
Trump also used a significant portion of his speech to falsely assert there was widespread fraud in the Social Security Administration (SSA), arguing that people well over 100 years old were receiving benefits. On Bluesky, Washington Post columnist Philip Bumpcalled that claim “total horses—“ and posted a link showing that
Trump was misreading data from the SSA. The agency has a database of every American who has been issued a Social Security number, but many of them don’t have a date of death listed, as they passed away before electronic records were put in place.Kansas University law professor Corey Rayburn Yung described the president’s remarksabout Social Security as “a lengthy diatribe that is all false.”
Donald Trump swore he would unite America and “make America great again.” He seems to have done the opposite: Divide America and move it toward a banana republic dictatorship.
We offer this flag of the Divided State of America to honor Trump’s imminent commitment.
The official flag of the Divided State of America now is available*
The flag’s symbols are explained:
This picture symbolizes Trump’s focus on his own financial enrichment and power rather than America’s.
This picture symbolizes the innocents who will suffer from Trump’s needless cruelty, which will do nothing to benefit America but will cause great harm, financially and morally.
The stripes symbolize the clothing Trump should wear, the criminals he hires for his administration, and the guilty Jan 6th criminals he will set free.
The phrase “IN SCOTUS, WE DON’T TRUST” reflects the U.S. Supreme Court’s claims to be “originalist.” Sadly, this Court has established a Presidency that operates above the law—the exact opposite of what the Constitution’s original framers intended and what the Revolutionary War was fought to end.
There are no stars on the Divided State of America flag because there are no stars in the leadership.
*Unlike Trump, we aren’t asking you to send us money for pieces of crap. After he is sworn in and begins to implement his cruel, expensive deporting and his costly tariffs, you’ll need to save every dime you can.
Lest you believe the MAGA movement is unique, it’s happening in Venezuela, too.
Is there hope for Venezuela as Maduro clings to power?From the 08/15/24 Sun SentinelWill Freeman, Los Angeles Times
MADURO
The Latin American left has a decision to make about Venezuela: Oppose Nicolás Maduro’s totalitarian bid to remain in power indefinitely or enable it.
Efforts to constrain Maduro may not succeed.
According to an Associated Press review of about 80% of Venezuelan voting machines’ paper tallies provided by the opposition, Maduro lost the July 28 election to opposition coalition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
Rather than acknowledge it, however, Maduro simply announced that he had won and blamed an unsubstantiated cyberattack by Elon Musk for his inability to prove it.
Maduro’s blatant steal marks a dark new chapter in Venezuela. Until July 28, the country was authoritarian with a patina of democracy, holding periodic unfree, unfair elections.
Now that Maduro knows he lacks the popular support to win even on a tilted playing field, he is scrapping the facade and going full totalitarian, exceeding even his previous crackdowns.
Trump lost the popular vote by a vast 7 million-vote margin.
He also lost the electoral vote despite it being slanted to favor the smaller red states.
The right-wing Supreme Court he installed didn’t save him, and his own Vice President didn’t save him.
His attack on Congress didn’t save him, even when he waited 3 hours before calling it off, hoping that somehow the mob would succeed.
His attempts to cheat by installing fake electors didn’t save him.
He lost all 60+ lawsuits in the states he had lost electorally when he falsely claimed he had been cheated.
And when none of that worked, he simply declared he had won. He tried every dirty trick he could think of.
His followers are still being prosecuted for their role in his illegal coup attempt. Now, he wants to be President again, and when he loses again, he will claim he won.
Maduro’s government has arrested more than 2,000 people without trial since election day; deployed Russian Wagner group mercenaries, Cuban secret police and other forces; and promised to send critics to “reeducation camps.” At least 24 people have been killed since election day.
TRUMP
Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism and a coinciding economic collapse in the 2010s pushed about 8 million Venezuelans into exile abroad, more than half a million of whom came to the United States.
The lurch toward full-fledged totalitarianism could prove even more destabilizing. Preelection polls suggested about 3.7 million additional people planned to migrate if Maduro remained entrenched.
Can anything hold Maduro back? Barring an improbable uprising within his security forces, further mass protests seem unlikely to rein him in. The United States could tighten its sanctions, but Maduro and his inner circle already know how to live under them, having forged ties with other pariah states.
Fortunately, Trump does not control America’s security forces.
That all could change should he become President.
Trump promised that, as President, he would deport 15-20 million undocumented immigrants.
He falsely claims they are causing increased crime in America. As usual, the facts say otherwise.
The research does not support the view that immigrants commit crime or are incarcerated at higher rates than native-born Americans.
In fact, immigrants might have less law enforcement contact compared to nonimmigrants.
Focusing on the facts is imperative, especially given that immigration has become a top issue for voters ahead of the election.Substantial research hasassessedthe relationship between immigration and crime.
Numerous studies show that immigration is not linked to higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite.
Studies have alsoexaminedthe impact of the concentration of immigrants in a community on crime patterns, finding that immigration is associated with lower crime ratesand an increase in structural factors — such as social connectionandeconomic opportunity— that are linked to neighborhood safety.
When looking specifically at the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime, researchers come to similar conclusions.
Numerous studies show that undocumented immigration does not increase violent crime; research examining crime rates in so-called sanctuary cities also found no discernable difference when compared to similarly situated cities without sanctuary policies.
One study found that undocumented immigrants are33 percent less likelyto be incarcerated than people born in the United States. Indications of a negative relationship between immigration and crime also emerge when looking at conviction rates.
In recent years immigrants were 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens.
Thus, disappear Trump’s excuses for destroying the lives of millions of hard-working, tax-paying people, as well as destroying the U.S. economy that relies on those people.
“It would,” Trump said, adding, he would “have no problem using the military, per se,” although he thinks the National Guard would suffice.
He does not think that laws meant to prevent the use of the military against civilians inside the US without congressional approval would apply to his effort.
“These aren’t civilians,” Trump said of migrants. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.”
Fear-mongering Trump invents his new definition of a “civilian.” The normal definition is: “a person not in the armed services or the police force.”
Because Trump does not even consider undocumented foreigners to be people, no wonder he claims they are not civilians.
He also repeated the conspiracy theory, for which there is no evidence, that “fighting age” males from China are somehow embedding themselves in the US.
He continues to invent idiocy to justify his craziness.
What about massive migrant camps?Trump tried to downplay the idea that there would be massive camps of detained migrants like those described to The New York Times by his immigration policy mastermind Stephen Miller, since, according to Trump, he would be deporting people so fast.
“We’re not leaving them in the country. We’re bringing them out,” he said. When asked under what authority he would make all of this happen, Trump suggested he would use federal money to pressure local police.
To where would these 15-20 million men, women and children be deported and how would he get them there? That hasn’t exactly been figured out. Presumably he would use the Nazi final solution of boxcars. Even Trump’s cruel advisors bear an uncanny resemblance to Hitler’s.
Finally, when Trump’s favorite lickspittle, flatterer, sycophant suckup softballed him with the easiest possible question, “Will you be a dictator,” Trump could simply have answered, “No.”
Instead, he answered, “Only for a day.” Would he do it. Would he violate the U.S. Constitution?
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 