Mates, just in case you turned off your televisions this weekend, let me give you an update of where we are right now.
Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) - which doesn't really exist, according to the current Department of Justice - has disrupted pretty much every corner of the federal government.
The declared purpose of this not-elected, not-legislated, and not-vetted department is to find $2 trillion in wasteful spending. Musk is described as merely a "senior advisor".
Nonetheless, his team of computer programmers barely old enough to shave have accessed personal information from FDA, USDA, FAA, DOE, and the National Parks Service, just to name a few.
They have illegally offered buyouts, have placed thousands of federal employees on leave, and have terminated thousands as well - some of whom actually took the buyout offer but later received a termination notice!
They reportedly even fired the people who safe-guard our nuclear weapons, not knowing that is what they do.
Then they had to scramble to hire them all back!
CAPTAIN'S NOTE: The salaries of all federal employees combined makes up less than 5% of the federal budget.
They are looking at cuts to Social Security and Medicare now, even though every politician ever has promised to keep their hands off the Trust Fund.
And now they have their eyes set on "inventorying" the gold deposit at Fort Knox!
They are justifying this with a lie, that some of the gold has been stolen. No proof. They just made it up.
A senator gave credence to the claim, saying he has asked to see the gold and has been repeatedly denied.
Like Schrödinger's Cat - the gold is in the vault and the gold has been stolen. We won't know which is true until Musk can get to it.
And then we can be pretty sure it will be stolen.
None of this was supposed to be in the prescribed duties of DOGE.
And yet no one is stopping them.
With his unbridled power, Musk has called for the producers of CBS' "60 Minutes" to be imprisoned for reporting on his alleged illegal raids of USAID, and the Associated Press has been banned from the White House Press Corps because they refuse to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as "Gulf of America".
Which lead to hilarity...
Yet, when Vice President Vance made stupid remarks in Germany this past week, he insisted on his First Amendment right to free speech.
Funny how that works.
As for the price of eggs, it continues to soar, despite Trumpf's promise of lowering prices "first day in office".
Charlie Kirk, a Trumpf mouthpiece, wrote an op-ed for Newsweek telling us we should stop worrying about the price of eggs.
Naturally, he blames President Biden for the rise in the price of eggs.
"What [Trumpf] is doing right now is saving us millions of dollars!"
"Putting more money in your pockets!"
Which is all fine and good, if it were true.
I mean, just how are all those laid-off federal workers going to afford anything without a job?
So political action groups combined to buy a large ad in the Washington Post calling for the firing of Elon Musk.
The Jeff Bezos-owned WaPo refused to run the ad.
Another case of Free Speech, I guess.
Since WaPo won't run the ad, here it is for your viewing pleasure:
CAPTAIN'S NOTE 2: While not yet convicted, what Musk is doing to our government right now IS criminal!
Meanwhile, "Nero fiddled while Rome burned."
A website has been created to track how often Trumpf is on one of his golf courses.
In his first four years as president he was on the golf course an average of once every 5.6 days, despite telling us he would be so busy being president he wouldn't have time for a vacation.
Here's the current situation:
Every time the president goes golfing, it costs U.S. taxpayers approximately $3 milllion.
Then there was his taxpayer-paid trip to the Super Bowl, which was estimated to cost $15-20 million dollars, and his trip to the Daytona 500 to joyride around the track in the presidential limousine (another $5 million+).
CAPTAIN'S NOTE: Air Force One costs approximately $2,964 per minute to operate.
If Musk was serious about cutting government waste, he should look first at the Oval Office.
Writers like Jay Kuo remind us to take a deep breath... that it is still early... it takes time for lawsuits to be filed to reign in some of this madness.
In reality, all it should take is for the Republicans in Congress to grow a backbone and defend the Constitution, the rule of law, and their own responsibilities to legislate.
But, alas, that is not happening.
The lot of them will be remembered for this at the mid-terms.
If we are allowed to ever vote again.
