Gallup: Few Major U.S. Political Figures Rated Positively on Balance

This one is really great. We have the world's richest man going through the State Department looking to reduce costs. And low and behold. The State Department issues a $400M contract for that individuals cars. As a result his wealth increases more. We knew this was going to happen.

Tesla's revenue in 2024 was less than $100M. This equates to almost doubling the revenue for Tesla. Add that to the $22B in money that SpaceX receives from the US Government and it appears that one of the biggest enrichers of tax payer money is Elon Musk. Drain the swamp? Yeah right.

This one is really great. We have the world's richest man going through the State Department looking to reduce costs. And low and behold. The State Department issues a $400M contract for that individuals cars. As a result his wealth increases more. We knew this was going to happen.

Tesla's revenue in 2024 was less than $100M. This equates to almost doubling the revenue for Tesla. Add that to the $22B in money that SpaceX receives from the US Government and it appears that one of the biggest enrichers of tax payer money is Elon Musk. Drain the swamp? Yeah right.

Biden's Crony Capitalism being replaced by Trump's Crony Capitalism...

This one is really great. We have the world's richest man going through the State Department looking to reduce costs. And low and behold. The State Department issues a $400M contract for that individuals cars. As a result his wealth increases more. We knew this was going to happen.

Tesla's revenue in 2024 was less than $100M. This equates to almost doubling the revenue for Tesla. Add that to the $22B in money that SpaceX receives from the US Government and it appears that one of the biggest enrichers of tax payer money is Elon Musk. Drain the swamp? Yeah right.

This is yet another example of why we need oversight and controls over government spending. I remember hearing a few years ago about the military looking into electric vehicles and how dangerous that was from a strategic and logistics standpoint (there are not too many charging stations on most battlefields). Conservatives were upset at the time. Remember this was under the Biden administration, but I have not heard any conservatives suggesting that we should not also have oversight of spending under the current administration. (the way things were written above I am concerned that some might think Trump approved that $400 million when in reality it was Biden. Regardless we need to get spending under control)

It says a lot about Musk when he is so concerned about the state of this country and our out of control spending that he is willing to expose that out of control spending even though it will likely mean that he will no longer benefit from it as much as he did in the past. How many others that were part of the grift and knew about it and benefitted from it, were willing to expose it like he did?

I do not want my tax dollars going to either electric vehicles or transgender education. Thus, I vote differently than some other folks do.

Do I trust Musk? No. Am I glad he is exposing all this spending? You bet. If his critics want to expose even more government waste and help us get it under control, by all means, let's work together on that. Let us encourage our elected officials on BOTH sides of the isle to help us shed more light on all the waste in government and work together to get it under control. The democrats have an excellent opportunity to do just that but are making themselves look corrupt by the way they are reacting instead.

Tesla's 2024 revenue is $97.69 BILLION, not million. So the State Department contract is nice, but it's not a total game changer for Tesla.

And an update; it is for armored vehicles, which Tesla does not make. So what is going on is that the actual vendor apparently is going to get that $400 million, but Tesla only gets a small fraction of that for their base vehicles.

And of course, the proper vehicle has got to be a Lotus Esprit. At least that's what James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me.

As it stands with Elon Musk, it's a huge conflict of interest. Why is a legitimate Politico contract for 8 million wasteful spending, but billions upon billions are funneled to Musk's companies and that's not wasteful? Elon should divest himself of his companies if he is going to hold a position in DOGE.

Make no mistake, I am thrilled for the government to reign in waste. However, I think Congress should have been doing this all along. They should not be able to approve a deficit budget year after year.

On the other hand, if the congregation voted to send $2000 to missionary ABC, then the money must be sent to them. What we need to determine is if the USAID funds were like the missions spending that must get where it was pledged to go, or if there are left over dollars that do not need to be spent.

What if the church body has voted “yes” every year to “$100,000 for the spending plan of the missions committee”? Then after ten years of that, a new pastor starts digging into the mission budget. And it turns out there’s 10k for a Catholic Church, 10k for a local thrift store, which is owned by one of the members of the missions committee, and 13k for planned parenthood? And when the pastor says he wants to look into the whole thing, the members of the missions committee go nuts and insist that reform of their budget is their job.

Oh don't worry, today, SpaceX was awarded an almost $40M contract today as well. Trust me, Elon has bought his way into the White House as an unelected bureaucrat. Elon donated more money to the campaign than anyone has ever given in modern history. Watching him stand in the Oval office with a hat on, while Trump sat off to the side behind a desk with his hands crossed partially baby sitting Musk's kid, should start outlining who is running what. If anyone doesn't think Elon is looking for an ROI on his investment, you are fooling yourself.

Why is Trump, who is seeking to remove illegal immigrants and close down our borders, so willing to welcome South Africans to the US as refugees? Why does he even care about what is going on in South Africa? Could a South African in the White House have any influence?

Drain the swamp?

What if the church body has voted “yes” every year to “$100,000 for the spending plan of the missions committee”? Then after ten years of that, a new pastor starts digging into the mission budget. And it turns out there’s 10k for a Catholic Church, 10k for a local thrift store, which is owned by one of the members of the missions committee, and 13k for planned parenthood? And when the pastor says he wants to look into the whole thing, the members of the missions committee go nuts and insist that reform of their budget is their job.

That would be a good analogy. Especially if we add, "imagine if the pastor chooses to disregard some (not all) of the constitution and bylaws to try fix it. The bottom line is that Utilitarian/Consequentialist ethics are being applied by everyone in our day and age. It was applied by those who corrupted USAid and other government entities, with an uptick during the Biden administration and now it's being applied by the Trump administration to fix it. Everyone is doing right in their own eyes, no matter what side of the aisle they claim. And the those in the church, whether they lean MAGA or NeverTrumpers turn a blind eye towards their own tribe because they they distrust and see the evil mainly in the other.

Neil Shenvi made an intriguing observation about the ethics of political critique. He lays out three approaches to in-group criticism that people use.

1. We should criticize our tribe less, because we need to win-Consequentialism: (morality is determined by consequences)

2. We should criticize both tribes equally, because we need to be fair-Deontology (rules determine morality)

3. We should criticize our tribe more, because we need to show integrity-Virtue ethics (morality is determined by character)

What's really sad is that our culture embraces #1 when it comes to how they see right and wrong in politics. What's even sadder is that most Christians are no different. Our biases leads us to think the best in our own political tribe and think the worst about those who are in different tribes than us when our sin nature and the potential for grave evil is in everyone. Pastors and Christian leaders also teaching and applying Christian Ethics to political thought in their contexts is indispensable for the time and age that we find ourselves in. But if we never were taught the discipline ourselves, we may also end up as the world's copycats. I am reminded of the Phillips paraphrase of Romans 12:2:

"Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity."

What if the church body has voted “yes” every year to “$100,000 for the spending plan of the missions committee”? Then after ten years of that, a new pastor starts digging into the mission budget. And it turns out there’s 10k for a Catholic Church, 10k for a local thrift store, which is owned by one of the members of the missions committee, and 13k for planned parenthood? And when the pastor says he wants to look into the whole thing, the members of the missions committee go nuts and insist that reform of their budget is their job.

In your scenario here, does the pastor actually look into the missions budget himself or does he pass all the church's financial information over to a rich friend? While some questionable expenditures are being found, does he stop sending money to the legitimate missionaries, causing them to have to abandon their ministries and leave the mission field?

Can anyone explain to me how Pam Bondi, the Attorney General can cause a NY district attorney to drop a case? The NY District Attorney is an elected position and cannot be dismissed by the AG. Also district attorney’s have wide prosecutorial discretion and latitude.

Pam Bondi told the US attorney (not a New York state attorney) who works for her and over whose work she has control to drop the federal case launched against Eric Adams by the Biden Administration, probably in retaliation for Adams' critique of the lax immigration policy. The US attorney was not dismissed but instead resigned rather than obey the lawful order of a superior. So there's your explanation.

Dan,

"What if the church body has voted “yes” every year to “$100,000 for the spending plan of the missions committee”? Then after ten years of that, a new pastor starts digging into the mission budget. And it turns out there’s 10k for a Catholic Church, 10k for a local thrift store, which is owned by one of the members of the missions committee, and 13k for planned parenthood? And when the pastor says he wants to look into the whole thing, the members of the missions committee go nuts and insist that reform of their budget is their job."

Your analogy is a good one. Now lets layer on the reality of what we see going on and the church bylaws say that the missions committee needs to present recommendations to the church membership for a vote in order to make changes to funding. And what the pastor does is go in and decide we are no longer going to fund Catholic Church's, local thrift stores and he bypasses the missions committee and he fails to bring it to the church to a vote. Those of us who have been in church our whole lives have seen this type of scenario play out in churches and pastors are subsequently removed.

The individuals who have a concern are not concerned with going in, digging in, finding fraud and waste and getting rid of it. People have concern that an unelected individual is able to root around in systems, unimpeded and make changes without articulating them, or getting by in with the representatives that created the agency and getting the vote. None of it would be hard as they clearly have enough votes to get anything passed. I love getting rid of waste and I love reducing the size of the government. But I also like to follow processes and let the american public have clear visibility on what is happening, so they can hold everyone accountable including Congress.

To make the pastor stopping payments example more realistic to what is happening in the government, we should modify the above example a bit. Imagine the pastor seeing where the payments were going, talking to the church secretary and they both decided together to stop all payments until they could have a church meeting. Federal payments have NOT been permanently stopped. They have been put on hold for 90 days.

Edit: I meant church treasurer, not secretary

I might add that the last couple pastors tried and failed to reform that "missions" budget failed. And several members and former members tried and failed to reform it or even figure it out.

This leads the current "pastor" to conclude (and I think he's right) that if he doesn't fix it, no one ever will.

Or I might modify it to say that it's not just the missions committee. All the committees are doing it. And the result is that the annual budget for this Chruch of 300 is over 2 million dollars, much of it obtained with borrowing.

Neil Shenvi ...three approaches to ... criticism ...
1. criticize our tribe less
2. criticize equally, "be fair-Deontology"
3. criticize our tribe more, because ... integrity-Virtue ethics

Yeah. Interesting.

The pastor tasks his right hand man, the head deacon, with cutting out spending and reducing the 2mil budget. The deacon starts cutting spending everywhere, except for the hundreds of thousands he himself is the recipient of because of course that spending is legitimate. No conflict of interest there?