Tomorrow Belongs To Me: On Boogers and Bullshit

In a freakish snapshot of the GOP's descent into brutal, gonzo nihilism, this week saw the brash Nazi-Oligarch-in-Chief helming an Oval Office presser to hype his political, economic, cultural demolition of democracy "in compliance with the President’s executive orders" - no more health care or feeding hungry kids, lots of Kid Rock - as his four-year-old son wiped boogers on the Resolute desk where an impassive, discomfited Trump sat in the "most powerless image of a President ever." Nothing to see here.

In a record three weeks - it took Hitler 53 days - the Musk/Trump regime has created, mostly illegally, a Stasi-like state in the name of "right-sizing the Federal inventory," which in their wee twisted minds means slashing almost every government agency to eliminate, according to their Orwellian mantra, "fraud, waste and abuse" Offering no evidence, and with his usual depth and nuance, Trump says they've already eliminated "billions and billions of dollars" that didn't need to be spent, coincidentally, invariably on behalf of helping vulnerable, marginalized, hungry or sick people. "The whole country looks like it's a fraud. It's fraud, waste and abuse," he exclaimed. "What Elon and his group of geniuses have found is unbelievable." Unbelievably brazenly, he has now called on the heads of all federal agencies to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" with the lofty goal of him and his rich buddies getting ever more ginormous tax cuts.

Meanwhile, countless innocents are being swept up in the Stalin-esque purges. They range from U.S. civil servants losing their jobs for doing their jobs to law-abiding, newly arrived Venezuelans disappeared to Guantanamo as "high-threat illegal aliens" for Michael Jordan tattoos to millions worldwide, Burma to Ukraine to South Africa, losing vital support from the shuttering of USAID, including over 280 million hungry people in 59 countries. Already thousands of aid workers have lost their jobs; over 475,000 metric tons of U.S.-grown food, enough to feed 36 million people, is at risk of going bad; Uganda has ended Ebola screenings; multiple African countries have closed HIV/AIDS clinics, hospitals in war-torn Syria have shut down; millions of Sudanese refugees are at risk of cholera and malaria; hundreds of millions of girls who lost access to schooling may become victims of trafficking. Says one expert, “People will starve, babies will die, poverty will skyrocket."

At home, where Trump vowed he'd bring down prices "on Day One" and protect basic safety net programs, prices are soaring and the House GOP is poised to decimate those programs. On Thursday they discussed a plan to cut $880 from Medicaid and $230 billion from food stamps over 10 years - cuts MAGA Mike expects to pass "unanimously," even though over 80% of voters oppose them, 20 million people could lose their health insurance, and it still wouldn't make a dent in the $4.5 trillion tax cuts they want for fat cats. Meanwhile, Musk just burrowed into New York City accounts to steal $80 million - or per Kristi Noem, "clawed back" the funds from "deep state activists" - allocated for sheltering migrant families in budget hotels the richest man in the world called "luxury." Then he fired four employees who tried to stop him. "If we're going after fraud and abuse," noted one Dem, "maybe go after abuse of power by the two billionaire freaks currently looting the government."

The day before, those freaks put in a "jarring," take-my-presidency appearance in the Oval Office, ostensibly for Trump to sign (another!) executive order to continue the looting and expand the power of Musk's DOGE, never mind the flood of lawsuits and court orders they face for slashing cancer research, kids' education, food for poor people and your Social Security in a flagrantly illegal power grab. In a bizarre spectacle, Trump hunched behind the Resolute desk, mostly silent, hands folded, eyes vague, randomly nodding - and often impotently babysitting Musk's fidgety four-year-old son X while ignoring X's whispered entreaty he had to pee and scowling as he picked his nose and wiped what he found on the sacred desk - as the Nazi native son of South Africa and richest guy in the room stood tall in his heedless black t-shirt and cap and offered up to the gaggle of press a murky load of chutzpah and bullshit to elucidate how American democracy works, or doesn't.

After making broad claims of fraud with no evidence, he babbled about the dangers of a political system run by "unelected bureaucrats," evidently, spectacularly unaware he, too, is unelected. Decisions should be made by "elected representatives, the president, House, Senate," he explained. "If unelected bureaucrats are in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?...We don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy." His baffling solution: "So we close that feedback loop, we fix it." Umm, okay. He admitted he made up the claim the U.S. sent $50 million in condoms to Gaza - it was sent to Mozambique to help control HIV - but dismissed it with, "We will make mistakes - not everything I say will be correct." To concerns of transparency or his billions in conflicts of interest, he hilariously disingenuously insisted, "All of our actions are fully public. So if you see anything like, ‘Elon, there may be a conflict,' they are going to say it immediately.” Super convincing.

DOGE's new guidelines demand agencies hire just one employee for every four who depart, and agency heads must "consult with a DOGE Team Lead" for approvals, which isn't Big Brother-ish at all. But Musk argued it's justified: "The people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get." Except they didn't: Trump won about 32% of the vote, Harris 31%, and almost 38% voted for neither. Many felt Musk used his son, 1 of his 11 kids, to deflect questions - "La la la I can't hear you" - which seemed creepy, especially after X's mother, musician Grimes, said she's "made it clear" she considers her kids in the public eye "a personal tragedy." To Lawrence O'Donnell, the spectacle of Musk "doing his billionaire thing" behind Trump as he awkwardly turned to interact was "a picture of presidential subservience the likes of which we have never seen." Musk, he said, "is doing everything he possibly can to tell the world (that) Donald Trump is not the boss of me."

The same day, the House held their first DOGE subcommittee meeting, headed by Klan Mom MTG, who used the occasion to say, "Taxes are collected by law at gunpoint!” “The American people are $36 trillion in debt. Somebody should be fired," and, for fun, “The gentleman’s time is expired." The day's highlight came when California's Dem Rep. Robert Garcia noted the ironic presence of supposed decorum fan MTG: In the last Congress, he said, "She literally showed a dick pic. So I thought i'd bring one as well." Then he hoisted a large photo of Musk, adding, "This of course is President Elon Musk." Cue appreciative chortling in the House. Later he was asked by a wide-eyed pundit if "calling Elon Musk a dick is effective messaging." Garcia didn't blink. "Well, he is a dick," he said. "And he's harming the American public in an enormous way. What I think is really important, and what the public wants, is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is a fight for democracy."

It's also a fight, Zack Beauchamp argues, where both institutional and citizen resistance, most effectively by federal workers, will be needed as a weak president with slim margins of victory continues to depend on "flagrant lawbreaking." For now, too many are being bullied into silence; says one critic, "Profiles in cowardice will be a very thick book." Often, the crimes are thoughts or words - important ones like "diversity" or "inclusion," and really, really dumb ones like "Gulf of Mexico." The Associated Press was banned from the Musk/X debacle because it didn't use the term "Gulf of America" to "align its editorial standards with the President," who is clearly a feckin' moron. Ugly rumors are also floating that other culprits will not get a Happy Meal or Fruit Cup. Juvenile much? Gulf of Idiocracy. The dream of many: For a reporter, thrown out of a press conference for saying something "the whiny one" has forbidden, to yell back, "Would you people fucking grow up??"

Still, heroes have emerged. While Google, Disney, PBS have folded on DEI - the latter, adding a mealy-mouthed assurance to "continue (to) reflect all of America" - Comcast, owner of NBC, has refused; it will now be investigated "to root out invidious forms of DEI discrimination." Manhattan's Trump-appointed, Federalist Society prosecutor Danielle Sassoon just resigned rather than obey a DOJ order to drop corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams; she was then ultimately joined by six more prosecutors under her. "The Department of Justice (says) it will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct," Sassoon wrote in a fiery resignation letter. "Dismissal of the indictment would be all three.” And U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reversed and blasted Trump's illegal firing of a top federal watchdog for being "disruptive" with, “It’s as if the bull in the china shop looked back over his shoulder and said, ‘What a mess!’”

Meanwhile, Drop Site News, a new investigative site by The Intercept's Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill, has launched to follow the money trailing Musk and his Nerd Reich. They exposed a federal procurement announcement that the guy squawking about abuse is set to make $400 million for purchases of his armored Tesla Cybertruck, which he claimed was bulletproof though it seems the windows aren't. After Drop Site's story ran, the feds removed the Tesla name, changed the buy to generic "electric armored vehicles," and said the document naming Tesla was "incorrect." As Musk scrambles to hide his profits, Trump stays busyl incomprehensibly yammering. He just raved that Marxists aren't using hydraulics "that go through hurricanes" but are spending "billions and billions of dollars" on magnets - "It's a new theory!" - to "lift up the ships that come into LaGuardia." "Waste, fraud and abuse this country is going through..." he muttered. 'We have to straighten it out."

Between rants, acting on a longtime grudge, he's also taken petty revenge on the uppity Kennedy Center - "We didn't like what they were showing and various other things" - by firing its top officials and Biden-affiliated board members, replacing them with clueless lackeys including his former caddy, and announcing they'd "unanimously elected" an "amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” to launch a "GOLDEN (white) AGE of American Arts and Culture," and "it's not going to be 'woke.'" Instead, it will presumably be Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, WWE wrestling, Lara Trump, The Village People, and Bible salesman Lee Greenwood croaking out God Bless the USA. So we guess it's true: Like shrieky Kimberley Guilfoyle once famously hollered, "THE BEST...IS YET...TO COME!!" Macro carnage, micro carnage, dystopian hellscape, the looming dread of Cabaret's final scene. Orwell: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

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