That's Unconstitutional

Sorry but it isn't and never has been

Welcome again, my dearest readers, as we look at things going on in the world and try to make sense of them. This week we will talk about the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) because that seems to be the most reported story in the media, and we will explore not only what it is, where it came from, and what it is doing. I know we have touched D.O.G. E in the last couple weeks, but this time we will look closely at it, and also examine how the mainstream media’s (MSM) and the establishment’s response to D.O.G.E both lost the plot and are wandering in the wastelands of popular opinion.

To start, D.O.G.E isn’t a new thing. It is an old organization the United States Digital Service established by an Obama Executive Order (EO) in 2014 (here). The United States Digital Service mission was to consult with Executive Branch Departments to modernize, streamline, and make them more efficient by implementing technological solutions or modernizing existing technologies. How well the original department did its job or how it implemented efficiencies, I have no idea. I do know, however, that this department was renamed and repurposed in all its MEME glory to D.O.G.E, and yes, this department ,regardless of what it does, is a MEME (here, here, and here). This includes the MEME Coin of the same name (At the urging of my second eldest son, I held 168 million of these for about a year in 2019-2020 and when they were still only worth about 10% more than I paid I sold them to do something else with the money. Today they are over 2 cents each womp… womp… waaaaah...). Why the MEME anagram for a very serious department? I don’t know, but it does truly fit the zeitgeist of our time in my opinion and maybe that is why.

We keep hearing Elon Musk is firing some number of federal employees, D.O.G.E is in the Treasury getting all your personal data, or Trump has ceded his position to Elon Musk (here, here, and here). My favorite is Trump uses D.O.G.E to seize and greatly expand Executive power (here, here, and here). It is all almost entirely garbage and the little truth that is there isn’t relevant to anything. First, besides auditing and making recommendations, D.O.G.E isn’t doing anything. Trump, on the other hand, is taking those recommendations and acting on them quickly, and then there is also the transparency. Not only are we the people being told what exactly D.O.G.E is doing, but then given at least the bones of what they found, as Trump moves forward with the recommendations. I will concede that the transparency and rapid action are abnormal, but not in a bad way.

So, while the MSM likes to conflate the Federal layoffs and buyouts to DOGE they are only responsible for a fraction of them. The majority of federal staff downsizing to date has been due to Trump’s completely legal return-to-work order and at upper levels people quitting in protest over D.O.G.E or another policy (here, here, and here). While D.O.G.E is responsible for some loss of federal jobs, it so far hasn’t been the main driver. The two biggest and most reported things D.O.G.E has reported so far are the total scam of fraud, waste, and abuse that were USAID (resulting in its disbanding), and the possibility that we are paying millions of people who are over 110-150 years old billions of dollars in benefits.

As far as Social Security is concerned the idea the time starts in 1935 is irrelevant because originally almost all systems from the era of COBOL originally used a two-digit date for the year because it saved memory in the old mainframes that were running programs written in COBOL. This problem with those programs only understanding years 00-99 were the crux of the Year 2000 bug (Y2K) that was seriously hyped up from the middle 1990s to the year 2000. As a side note, I was working in IT at the time and did a lot of year 2000 remediation on systems. During that period, I also saw tests resulted in catastrophic failures in systems using the two-digit year. Ultimately, it was all the hype and billions of dollars spent fixing things that made it a non-issue in most cases. The fix for this was to make the systems use a four-digit year date. The MSM and other establishment sources have offered up a grand line of garbage that isn’t fooling anyone. The claim is that since the Social Security mainframe is programmed in COBOL it recognizes 1875 as the beginning of time and uses that as a default date when one isn’t provided. I have no doubt that the people working on the Social Security mainframes made the year 1875 the beginning of time. So anyone without a birthdate entered will show up to be 150 years old (here, here, and here). The fact that Social Security is paying out benefits to people without having their birthdate on file seems as big an issue as paying non-existent 150-year-olds. Without a birthdate, how do we know the recipient is eligible? This also doesn’t account for all the people 110 plus years old still flagged as alive (here). The other claim made by the MSM is that Musk is looking at the wrong database and those records are not getting paid. That may be the case, but it still begs the question why are there so many people listed as alive in any database that are clearly dead and why is the establishment so opposed to having these things investigated? It feels very much like the 2020 election when they claimed it was the most secure and fair election in history so no reason to investigate anything. For all I know it might be a pool of dead people the CIA uses to build new identities with social security numbers that check out. Either way, it seems odd and should be looked into.

Then there is the fit about Trump disbanding USAID and folding it into the state department, and I will roll in the complaint that the president doesn’t have the authority to stand up a new department with D.O.G.E (He didn’t. He just renamed and repurposed one). I find that interesting because USAID was created by an EO from President Kennedy in 1961 and the root organization for D.O.G.E was created by EO from Obama in 2014. If these agencies (and a lot of others) were created by EO, how then is it unconstitutional for a president to alter or abolish them using the same EO authority that created them? The truth is, it isn’t unconstitutional. It is actually the President’s job to handle and delegate all executive authority (here). As a matter of fact, here is an incomplete list of agencies created by executive order, their function, the year they were established, and who established them:

Executive Office of the President (EOP)

Year Created: 1939

President: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Details: Established by Executive Order 8248 on September 8, 1939, this office includes several key components that assist the President in managing the executive branch.

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Year Created: 1970

President: Richard Nixon

Details: Created to assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in executive agencies.

National Security Council (NSC)

Year Created: 1947

President: Harry S. Truman

Details: Formed to advise the President on national security and foreign policy matters.

Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)

Year Created: 1946

President: Harry S. Truman

Details: Established to provide the President with economic policy advice.

Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)

Year Created: 1988

President: Ronald Reagan

Details: Created to coordinate the federal government's efforts to reduce illegal drug use and its consequences.

Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)

Year Created: 1976

President: Gerald Ford

Details: Established to provide the President with advice on the scientific, engineering, and technological aspects of issues.

Domestic Policy Council (DPC)

Year Created: 1993

President: Bill Clinton

Details: Formed to coordinate the domestic policy-making process.

National Economic Council (NEC)

Year Created: 1993

President: Bill Clinton

Details: Created to coordinate the economic policy-making process.

It is clear that establishing agencies is historically a fairly uncontroversial thing, and a president dissolving an agency is also not a controversial thing, at least historically. Here is an incomplete list of agencies disbanded, reorganized, or folded into another agency by executive order:

Executive Office of the President's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Year Disbanded: 2021

President: Joe Biden

Details: This office was dissolved as part of a broader reorganization of the Executive Office to streamline operations.

National Commission on Libraries and Information Science

Year Disbanded: 2010

President: Barack Obama

Details: This commission was eliminated as part of budget cuts and a shift in focus towards other information policy initiatives.

Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO)

Year Disbanded: 1973

President: Richard Nixon

Details: The OEO was created to oversee the War on Poverty programs but was dissolved as part of a broader shift in federal policy.

Federal Energy Administration (FEA)

Year Disbanded: 1977

President: Jimmy Carter

Details: The FEA was dissolved when its functions were transferred to the newly created Department of Energy.

Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP)

Year Disbanded: 1977

President: Jimmy Carter

Details: The OTP was responsible for telecommunications policy but was disbanded as part of a reorganization of federal telecommunications oversight.

National Aeronautics and Space Council

Year Disbanded: 1973

President: Richard Nixon

Details: This council was responsible for coordinating national space policy but was dissolved as part of a reorganization of space-related activities.

Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) - Original Form

Year Disbanded: 1970

President: Richard Nixon

Details: The original form of the CEQ was disbanded and restructured to better align with environmental policy needs.

Again, there is nothing controversial about the president disbanding, reorganizing, or folding executive departments by EO. It has been going on for a very long time. So why the hissy fit over it now? Is it just that Trump is doing it? I think it goes deeper. First, there were billions going to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) for all kinds of insane things, from contraception in sub-Saharan Africa, producing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion musicals in Ireland, millions to Eco Health Alliance some used in their off shore gain of function programs including COVID, bags of hundred dollar bills to the Taliban, and a myriad of other things. Interestingly, many establishment people have close family members receiving 7- and 8-digit salaries on the boards of many of the NGOs, many of these NGOs found or donate heavily in Political Action Committees (PAC) that are used to directly influence our elections. George Soros is a prime example (here, here, here, and here). I think the fit is twofold. The first is a lot of people will be losing a lot of money for doing nothing they had arranged to receive, and second, with the spike in searches for defense attorneys in the Washington DC area (here), they are scared that their systemic abuse of taxpayers will be called to a reconning (we can hope). Lastly, this D.O.G.E dividend of $5000 to everyone, the good news is they say it wouldn’t be inflationary because it would be drawn from existing funds that were saved, but since most of those were going over seas they probably will be inflationary if dumped domestically, and as for me, I would prefer they just apply it to the debt or the deficit (here and here).

Proverbs 3:5–6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

God Bless you

-Sam