GOVERNING BY REALITY TV IS NOT WORKING

How’s the idea that the right sort of men can do a better job than government officers who have spent decades learning how to do their jobs working out for you? What has DOGE actually accomplished? The cost of firing workers will be more than $135B. Cuts to the IRS will cost about $8.5B in 2026 alone. And then there is the cost of lawsuits over DOGE’s actions. But they did excel at one thing. Harvesting all our personal data, from seemingly every government agency that holds such. What are they doing with this? Do you know? To conduct RFK Jr’s let’s-reinvent-the-wheel autism study, the NIH is also collecting Americans’ private medical records from federal and commercial databases. From the VA and IHS. Medication records from pharmacies. Even data from smartwatches and fitness trackers. It is in talks with Medicare and Medicaid to see if it can get access to those databases as well. Ex-Fox News Channel weekend host Pete Hegseth is now tucked into the Pentagon. He has zero experience that would justify him overseeing a budget of $850B and almost 3.5M employees. He has been a complete disaster. Signalgate, One and Two. He is using just his support-human wife, his lawyer, and two lower-level officials as advisors. What experience do they have? Why are they privy to military operations? Trump said he and China are working on a tariff deal. But a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said “China and the U.S. are not having any consultation or negotiation on tariffs, still less reaching a deal.” “Any claims about the progress of China-U.S. trade negotiations are groundless as trying to catch the wind and have no factual basis.” When a reporter asked Trump about China’s denial, he said: “Well, they had a meeting this morning.” The reporter answered: “Who’s they?” Trump replied: “I can’t tell you. It doesn’t matter who ‘they’ is. We may reveal it later.” Sure. Trump won the presidency by assuring America that he was a strong leader who could impose his will on the country and the world. Now he is bleating weakly at Putin. This made-for-TV cast of characters is wrecking the country. Turns out you need more than good BS to make things work.