THOMPSON: Musk has ‘left the building’ but DOGE lives on in infamy
“Elvis has left the building.” Al Dvorak – a jack-of-all-trades who variously served as Elvis’s musical director, promoter, producer, advance man, security chief, concessions manager and stage announcer – popularized the phrase.
Today, it simply denotes that something is over…finished. As of last Friday, it applies to Elon Musk.
Those who loved Elvis knew that when they heard Dvorak’s dulcet tones…it was time to go. Of course, millions of fans left Elvis concerts happy, whistling the King’s tunes…remembering his every move…his look…his sound…for the rest of their lives.
You can’t say that about Musk. He is perhaps the most unlikable person to ever not be in government. People won’t dream of him fondly so much as have nightmarish recollections of him.
Trump named Musk the head of the Department of Government Efficiency…as true an oxymoronic send up as “military intelligence” or “crash landing”. Musk was never elected. He knew that it would be easier to just buy his way in…offering Trump what amounted to a high-limit political credit card…$290 million in campaign contributions.
Musk – like Trump – is given to exaggeration. Both, evidenced by hundreds of video tapes, are serial liars. Musk initially said he would save two trillion dollars by “slashing waste, fraud and abuse.”
Days later he lowered expectations…the new number was one trillion dollars. Six weeks into the job…the figure slipped to $175 Billion. Last week, at the end of his 130 days, he claimed it was $150 Billion.
The U.S. Treasury, however, tracks the daily flow of dollars in and out for every agency…every department…every bureau…of the Federal government. Treasury says the savings aren’t savings at all.
Trump and Republican spending in the first 100 days exceeded any Presidential Administration in nine of the past ten years by more than $220 Billion. The only President to spend more was Trump in 2021…with more than two trillion dollars going toward his botching of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Musk in just four months single-handedly devastated the health and security of the U.S. and directly caused the deaths of more than three-hundred thousand people – mostly children – worldwide. Experts from the World Health Organization estimate Musk’s decisions might cause one million deaths by year’s end…a lag effect of waylaid food and vaccines.
Trump and Musk – or as Trump called him, “First Buddy” – really never intended to save taxpayers money…it was a smokescreen to cover the real reason – undermining the U.S. Constitution so Trump could rule autocratically.
Nearly 10 percent of the already understaffed federal workforce was laid off… regardless of their institutional knowledge or experience. Musk used a team of teenagers and early-twenties renegades as storm troopers to enter agencies, make outlandish and often illegal demands, before closing the doors at units that predicted weather, controlled air traffic and provided disaster relief, among others.
But by far the worst Musk decision was to end foreign aid under the USAID program. The savings – as noted before – don’t exist…the money simply moved to support pet Republican projects…or pay exorbitantly to fly Trump to golfing resorts…and deporting folks who shouldn’t have been deported.
Even now, warehouses full of food that American taxpayers had already paid for are rotting…and will never feed a single child. HIV, tuberculosis, polio and other diseases that were once controlled…now are killing hundreds of thousands of people a month in Africa alone…again, mostly children.
Simply halting PEPFAR – the best thing President George W. Bush ever did – that provided more than 20 million people with HIV drugs at a minuscule cost…has already killed 54,500 adults and 5,800 children. The numbers will continue to rise. Every day since Jan. 21, 1,500 babies are born in African nations who are HIV-positive…all because Musk cut off medication to their mothers.
Musk – like Trump – doesn’t trust facts or truths. Both have a record of being humiliated by the public’s disapproval of their actions. Musk spent $25 million of his own money back in April to get a Republican elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court…his candidate lost by ten percentage points.
Look, Musk has delivered Sieg Heil salutes to MAGA crowds, lent a huge hand in undermining American freedom and democracy, and condemned millions of people to unnecessary deaths. That’s a lot for 130 days.
Then there is the grifting Musk and Trump accomplished in those 130 days. WithTesla sales flagging…they turned the White House into a car lot to promote Tesla vehicles. Both used their influence to garner more SpaceX contracts with the Republican Administration…and sell StarLink Internet services to countries around the world.
Musk is gone from the infamous Department of Government Efficiency…that could be America’s greatest savings.
“Elvis has left the building!” Indeed! One down…one to go.
