What would you say you do here?
Another gaggle of Madison progressives will self-medicate with a protest march and righteous fulmination at the Wisconsin State Capitol here in Madison next Monday noon 02-17-25.
“Not My President’s Day” is ballyhooed as a 50-state “fight against fascism” (that word again!) and for “government accountability,” by the 50501 Movement, co-sponsored by a Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) group. One is tempted to join them if only to learn exactly what form that resistance might take. Maybe a mass sell-off of their Teslas?
Madison and other enclaves of the Resistance are in a dither over Elon Musk and his Musketeers who are dumpster diving into the recesses of federal government in search of waste and fraud.
As a concept, waste and fraud triggers progressives who swear on their diversity and equity statements that there is no god before “unmet needs.”
Shine that light
The U.S. Agency for International Development, for instance, may or may not have delivered $50 million in condoms, perhaps to a different Gaza. (Some expenditures listed here.) Nor do we know how much of that is what the Soprano family might call “overhead.” But marching in solidarity for waste and fraud seems a barren hill upon which to die.
Most Americans know very little about USAID and could not care less about the USAID as an institution. And if you told them that USAID basically administers foreign aid programs, they would care even less. … Trump attacks an institution Democrats are identified with; Democrats feel obliged — pretty much no matter what it is — to defend it tooth and nail. But that simply reinforces Democrats’ brand as the institutional, establishment party. — Ruy Teixeira, The Liberal Patriot
Democrats should have listened when Bubba Clinton announced the era of Big Gummint is over. But NO-ooo-ooo! They went and elected Barack Obama and the super-annuated ghost of FDR. The City of Madison bit like a rabid Doberman on one-time federal government money, causing it to hit up property taxpayers for a $27 million bailout last November.
Still stunned by the return of Donald Trump from Elba, Democrats seem in little mood to listen to the likes of William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck. The two Brookings Institution thinkers crunched election results from the seven swing states, which include Wisconsin.
By 52 to 44%, swing state voters saw excessive government spending rather than corporate price-gouging as the principal driver of inflation. … By a margin of 51 to 38% voters believed that the Biden agenda promoted handouts and economic dependency over opportunity and work, according to an April 2024 Third Way poll. In addition to the border, in 2024 the Trump campaign brought the issue of transgender rights to the fore, aided by an uncomfortable clip of then-Senator Harris stumbling through a question concerning federal taxpayer dollars being used for gender-affirming surgeries in federal prison. — “Renewing the Democratic party“
Democrats demanded that long-haul truck drivers pay off loans incurred by grievance study majors. Biden kept at it despite being over-ruled by the courts. Galston and Kamarck conclude that Democrats “need to do more than playing better the cards they now hold. They need a reshuffled deck and a new deal.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Um, not an FDR New Deal, presumably. So thorough is the make-over the Brookings pair prescribes that all the Max Factor lipstick in the world is not going to pretty up the pig. The Republican party is accepting memberships.
15 responses to “No waste, no fraud, no peace”
Birnie’s kickbacks stopped maybe? Elizabeth’s Warrens kuckbacks stopped. Naxine Waters kickbacks stopped also. Oh my…constitutional crisis, sky is falling, blue haired fellas screaming world is ending. Ok..
Target sells lipstick for almost half the price of Max Factor. But I love your veiled (??hmmm) reference to glossing up the old porky lips if that’s what you were going for. No matter how deeply I ponder the reason (and I’ve been known to delve into the mystical realm to leave no stone unturned), I cannot begin to fathom the reason they are hanging onto their bone-headed mania. Maybe that virus infected one half of their remaining brain cell? Madison might have been the test case where they added it to the water supply for extra strength. Imagine, though, for one minute, the pain they have to be in or think they are in, judging by all that squealing.
Should be around 4 degrees above zero around noon on Monday. Based upon the turnout last time, I would not expect a crowd. [Photograph]
I heard this somewhere. DAGE. Democrats Against Government Efficiency. It seems to fit.
Be ye not proud you Republicans of the Uniparty. You too were bought by the Koch Brothers et al. Every continuing resolution; every Kabuki Dance ‘We’re all gonna die if the government shuts down.’ every Omnibus Spending Bill (looking at YOU Paul Ryan-o).
From the Tea Party to today you Republican “pigs” have danced in the Animal Farmhouse looking more and more like Democrats… swilling from the federal trough.
Now comes Trump.
P.S. Legislating, like sausage making, is an unpleasant process.
Especially if you are the pig.
Madison’s liberal elites like nothing more than prancing up State Street to the Capitol Square, brandishing their placards (the same ones they’ve been brandishing since the Vietnam-era protests) and screaming their slogans–all of which must include the term ‘fascist.’ I, for one, take great delight in these displays of impotent rage, but they do raise the question, ‘When was the last time Madison liberals acknowledged that a Republican president was ‘theirs’ as well as everyone’s else’s? McKinley, maybe?
You mean they re-use those protest placards for decades?
Now yer talkin’.
What kind of Waste-n-Fraud is despicable Lefty defending?
(edited–bolds/caps/italics mine throughout)
“My neighbor just returned from doing Hurricane Helene disaster relief, CUTTING BROKEN TREE LIMBS, AN ESSENTIAL TASK THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE MONTHS AGO.
(1) He cuts a tree limb.
(2) An assigned FEMA employee photographs the limb and measures its diameter and length.
(3) FEMployee (sic) records cutter’s name, ID number, date, time, limb data, location, and uploads pictures.
(4) FEMployee completes paper record, with reference number for limb, which is given to the cutter. THE SLIP IS WORTH $100.
“THIS IS REPEATED FOR EACH LIMB. My neighbor cut 80 LIMBS/DAY. Look at the vast waste here. $8000/DAY FOR THE TREE CUTTING ($2000 FOR MY NEIGHBOR, THE REST FOR HIS BOSS) AND $2000+/DAY FOR FEMployee. My neighbor only did a couple hours of work each day, the rest was waiting for data entry. SO, WHY DOES TRUMP JUST WANT TO ELIMINATE FEMA AND GIVE BLOCK GRANTS TO STATES FOR DISASTER RELIEF?
~$50 FOR EVERY DOLLAR THAT GETS TO A PERSON IN NEED? THE GREED AND GRAFT OF THE PROFESSIONAL GOVERNMENT CLASS IS TOO MUCH FOR THE COUNTRY TO BEAR.”
Not enough? HERE’S MORE
The Gotch
“dumpster diving into the recesses of federal government”
Hardly. So far it’s all grift that has been hiding in plain sight. 6 months at least before they get into the recesses.
This stuff is worn out. No one cares. Legacy media that paints them as saints no longer matters. No one watches it. Twitter is the arena now and it’s a competitive platform. The fake NGO people can’t compete on twit. They’re the villains now. The show has changed.
Counter protests will have to be acted out by credentialed bureaucrats this time. FBI’s fake agitprops got cut out of the budget and fired, so no fake goons this time. LOL. What a time to be alive.
“What a time to be alive.”
Yeah, buddy!
The Gotch
They want to eliminate the penny, because every penny produced costs the taxpayers 2 cents. But that fact just makes this a low-priority concern. Anytime our government purchases something at merely TWICE the price, it’s a BARGAIN!
Strange how I’ve never heard any protests about:
1. Being $36T+ in debt
2. Nearly $2T deficit last year and increasing all the time
3. Being lied to about the mental fitness of our chief executive for the last 3+ years
4. That same chief executive demanding that student loans be paid by those that didn’t take them even after the SCOTUS told him no
5. Latin American gangs crossing the border illegally and embedding themselves in vulnerable cities
6. Sending billions to a country (Gaza) that has terrorists for government (Hamas) and used it to wage war against one of our chief allies (Israel)
7. Our last administration effectively censoring private social media with threats
8. Normalizing racism against whites, Asians, and Jews in government departments and on publicly funded campuses