This past week's commentaries
Happy Saturday! If you need to catch up on this past week’s events, below is just some of what I covered:
Substack is the home for great culture
Happy Saturday! If you need to catch up on this past week’s events, below is just some of what I covered:
It is clear from the information you provide that fraud and abuse are not the DOGE target. It is clearly retribution against enemies and dismantling oversight capability to make on-ramps for oligarch exploitations. Trump anticipates kickbacks from Elon on Federal contracts. I believe Mysk has tainted every bid he is pursuing. That impacts every single Federal BID that Musk currently has in progress, and also every potential future bid. At issue is non-public insider information. You cannot bid if you hold insider information, or if the appearance is the same.
Every bidder competing against Musk has recourse outside of the bid-letting agency. Jeff Bezos is being handed this smoking gun. When a bidder suspects there will be an unfair bias in the agency, they can bypass GAO and file in federal court to disqualify Musk, a Musk company, or a Musk team (subcontract or joint venture).
Here is the kicker. Federal court judges will decide on the insider information issue, not the Executive Branch employees. Thus undue influence and strong arming from the Trump administration will be useless.
What I foresee is no more Federal contracts for Musk. He has screwed the pooch. I don’t even see how he can be awarded a sole source extension to an existing contract. I see $ for lawyers. Jeff Bezos has a strong protest play here.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/musk-stains-future-federal-contract
If anyone out there does not realize the dangers we face due to the incompetence of the Trump administration, think again. The dangers are real and they are present:
"Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs. Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons. The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning." https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/climate/nuclear-nnsa-firings-trump/index.html
What will the next act of abject incompetence be? I think it is already in progress. I am recovering after almost two weeks of suffering from influenza A; bronchitis continues to plague and weaken me. I think Trump is sweeping the extent of this epidemic under the rug for the same reason he downplayed Covid; he thinks it makes him look bad, which ironically makes him look bad.