IF THIS IS EFFICIENCY WE THE PEOPLE ARE NOT IMPRESSED

The unpopularity of the new administration's policies is starting to show. House Republicans were told to stop holding town halls after angry constituent pushback on all the chaos. Predictably, Trump has blamed paid “troublemakers” for the agitation, and claimed the disruptions are part of the Democrats’ “game.” Of course this ignores the fact that it’s the Republican reps who have been asked to stop town halls. Which assumes a Republican majority of constituents. Annoying factoid: More Americans voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him. Aside from the angry protests, DOGE keeps running into trouble. In his speech before Congress on Tuesday, Trump referred to DOGE and said it “is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight.” Ah ha! Now we know. In a filing in a lawsuit against DOGE and Musk, the WH declared that Musk is neither in charge of DOGE nor an employee of it. In fact the WH claimed on February 26 that the acting administrator of DOGE is staffer Amy Gleason. Immediately after Trump’s statement, the plaintiffs in that case asked permission to add Trump’s statement to their lawsuit. (Lawyers are always listening. Maybe he should stick to reading off the teleprompter?) Musk has claimed to have found billions of dollars of waste or fraud in the government, and Trump and the WH have touted such. But these claims to have found massive savings have been full of errors, and most of their claims have been disproved. DOGE has already had to retract five of its seven biggest claims. As for “savings,” the government spent about $710 billion in the first month of Trump’s term, compared with about $630 billion during the same timeframe last year. In reality all these claims prove is just how poorly Musk and his team understand the work of the federal government. Firing people as a method to determine if they are essential or not is just lazy, and the opposite of efficiency. When you fire then have to rehire the people guarding the U.S. nuclear stockpile, this is more than just making ‘a few mistakes.’ This is incompetence. Example: In his Tuesday speech, Trump claimed that the DOGE team had found “$8 million for making mice transgender,” and added: “This is real.” Except it’s not. The mice in question were not “transgender”; they were “transgenic,” which means they are genetically altered for use in scientific experiments to learn more about human health. (Reading skills by the president and his minions might want to be tested before abolishing the Dept. of Education.) For comparison, in just his first month Trump spent about $10.7 million in taxpayer money playing golf. DOGE and Trump are trying to shut down advanced medical research, especially cancer research, in the U.S. It’s not hyperbole. That’s happening. These are a few of the real reasons you have to cancel town halls. You should pay attention.