"Now, many of my Democratic colleagues and some of the tofu-eating wokeratti at the USAID are screaming like they're part of a prison riot because they don't want us reviewing the spending. But that's all Mr. Musk is doing, and he's finding some pretty interesting stuff. To my friends who are upset, I would say, with respect, you know, call somebody who cares...They better get used to this. It's USAID today, it's going to be Department of Education tomorrow."

Kennedy said for four years under Joe Biden, that these people asked one simple question, "Who needs to pay more in taxes?" "Well, that's not the question that the Republicans and President Trump are going to ask," Kennedy explained. "Our question is, 'What the hell happened to the money?'"

Exactly, and that's why Democrats are flipping out — because, finally, all of this is being unraveled.

ALX 🇺🇸 @alx
·
Elon Musk on USAID threatening Senator Joni Ernst: “It’s outrageous that a taxpayer-funded organization would threaten a U.S. Senator who is simply trying to figure out if American taxpayer money is being spent correctly and not fraudulently.”

12:51 AM · Feb 3, 2025
https://x.com/alx/status/1886291382949527609

But imagine the power they believe they have if they think they can threaten a senator. Sounds like this is one more thing that needs to be investigated by U.S. Attorney Martin. All of this has to stop. This obviously has desperately needed oversight for a long time.

Ernst also posted an interesting thread about some of the bad things they've found so far. You can check out the thread here.
https://x.com/SenJoniErnst/status/1886530928379617675

Brandon Wright, Platform Services Manager for DHS, was recorded saying that the agency’s career bureaucrats do not allow political appointees to interfere with their operations. He told the undercover reporter, "Kristi Noem? I f*cking hate her."

“The secretaries can set the priorities for the department, but they can't actually tell us what to do,” Wright told an undercover OMG journalist, later adding, "The truth is, we don't let them [secretaries] get in our way.” He said, "If we don’t agree with those priorities, there is a lot of room for interpretation, in terms of how we interpret what those priorities are."

He compared the government's bureaucratic structure to a septic tank, saying that there are layers that allow employees to filter directives in a way that minimizes their impact. “There’s a lot of layers like that in the government. And by the time the actual marching orders get to, like, me and below, we can filter it in a way that steadies the ship,” he said. //

The Department of Homeland Security provided the following statement to O’Keefe Media Group:

“Secretary Noem has not seen the video in its entirety. This type of behavior will not be tolerated. This person has been placed on leave and is under investigation … The senior official says the termination of the official is imminent.” //

SLOTown Hoosier
2 hours ago
Sadly, Wright was only stating the truth - “saying that the agency’s career bureaucrats do not allow political appointees to interfere with their operations”. This has been a known fact for decades and no one in the District of Corruption, on either side of the aisle, took action. DJT had other distractions the first time around but these people are going to get the Apprentice treatment this time around.

To say Democrats and their press allies were upset would be an understatement. Nothing seems to incense the left more than stopping the federal government from wasting taxpayer money overseas. Politicians who never said a word about the lack of funding for Hurricane Helene victims rushed to the podium to decry how "cruel" and "dangerous" it is to stop funding abortions in the Gaza Strip, among other insane wastes of money. //

LEAVITT: Here's the reason Elon Musk and others have been taking a look because if you look at the waste and abuse that has been run through USAID over the years, these are some of the insane priorities that that organization has been spending money on.

1.5 million dollars to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces. $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland. $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. I don't know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don't want my dollars going towards this crap, and I know the American people don't either, and that's exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do. To get the fraud, waste, and abuse out of our federal government.

Now ask yourself, what possible benefit to America's standing could come from promoting DEI in Serbia or paying for a transgender comic book in Peru? And that's assuming the money even went to those things. To be frank, many of the grants given out by USAID sound so ridiculous that it would make more sense for them to just be money laundering operations. //

GBenton
an hour ago
I'm guessing none of those funded projects or causes got a fraction of the money or even existed. Probably all fronts for the Dems and Republicans who authorized the pay to play.

Understand what this means. Trump and Musk are cutting off the enemy's money supply and exposing the dirt behind how they funded Covids creation and release and Trump's lawfare, too.

wanna bet the money trail leads directly back to the scumbags crying into microphones?

They're all dirty corrupt maggots and they're all going down.

All they can think of to do is scream and cry and probably accuse Trump of persecuting his critics when they get indicted.

But he's got the receipts and they're screwed.

Wanna bet Cheney and McConnell and Ryan and Romney are all in on this?

of course they are. Its all about the grift with this treasonous traitors.

When Democrats and the media say they’re concerned about ‘independence’ in Trump’s appointees, they mean they want insubordination. //

Neither Democrats nor the Washington-based news media want Donald Trump’s presidency to succeed and one of the most effective ways to ensure it doesn’t is for people to sabotage his administration from within, as was often the case in his first term.

But they don’t explicitly acknowledge that reality. They instead cloak the subversion in nobility by referring to “independent” administration officials or cabinet appointees whom they urge to “exercise independence.”

On Friday’s episode of The New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast, reporter Jonathan Swan said Trump and his closest allies are “scouring the executive branch, looking for any pockets of independence and removing them.” Likewise, during the confirmation hearing for Trump’s pick for attorney general Pam Bondi, Democrat Sen. Chris Coons said, “One of the concerns I’ve raised … is safeguarding the Department of Justice’s independence…”. //

Every elected Republican and “career civil servant” (aka government bureaucrat) who did that in Trump 1.0 was turned into a media hero: Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Alexander Vindman, Miles Taylor (who?!), Mark Milley, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Wray, John Brennan and on and on and on.

Each one of those “independent” fellows proved their courage by undermining the person to whom power was bestowed by the voters. To be called “independent” by Democrats and the media is to do everything Democrats and the media want you to do. Amazing how that works.

The Department of Justice, FBI, and USAID are posing prominent test cases for how the Trump administration can reform a malignant federal bureaucracy. //

The Office of Personnel Management and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are also posing prominent test cases for how the Trump administration can reform a federal bureaucracy that has, by design, resisted elected control since its inception. //

USAID is widely perceived as a CIA front organization. Former State Department official Mike Benz says USAID has funded international censorship and regime change operations. As demonstrated by journalists Diana West and M. Stanton Evans, the State Department has embedded Communist subversives from well before Whittaker Chambers all the way through secretaries Hillary Clinton and Antony Blinken, making it another top strategic threat to American self-governance. //

Last Monday, acting agency administrator Jason Gray placed 50-60 USAID employees on paid administrative leave while he investigates “information that they may have been conspiring to circumvent Trump’s executive orders requiring the halting of federal aid funds to overseas programs and all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the agency,” reported RealClearPolitics’ Susan Crabtree. //

Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio Sunday complaining about the incident and insisting that “by law” Congress must determine whether the president can revise a president-created agency. //

If the executive cannot control his own personnel, agencies, and funding lawfully given to him by a duly elected Congress, elections mean nothing. If the executive is not actually an executor, then the entire bureaucracy is an autocratic, self-licking ice cream cone. It runs the country, not any elected official. And Congress is complicit, because it allows the distribution of opium funds to Afghanistan and queer “safe spaces” in Kenya without ever having to take a public vote on any of this garbage, so long as these taxpayer-provided slush funds slather their retirements and relatives with “nonprofit” and “contractor” lard.

KanekoaTheGreat
@KanekoaTheGreat
USAID funneled $53 million to EcoHealth Alliance, which then used U.S. taxpayer funds to support gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab—research that likely led to the creation of COVID-19.

The CIA’s deception regarding COVID-19 origins becomes much clearer when considering USAID's long history of serving as a CIA front organization.

houdini1984
8 hours ago
In a perfect world, Snowden would have been able to report the IC's violation of Americans' rights to Congress. He should have attempted to do so. But is he a traitor? Hardly.

Here's the thing. We're talking about a Congress that failed to punish the intelligence community for... wait for it... spying on Congress. Yes, that's right. The IC was literally spying on our representatives, and forced to admit to those activities. And what did Congress do? They continued to renew all the powers that the IC regularly abuses.

Anyone who's paying attention understands that our elected representatives are, almost to a man and woman, scared to death of this country's intelligence community. They are terrified that their own secrets may be used against them by a vengeful IC. They are willing to sacrifice your liberties to maintain some semblance of peaceful coexistence between themselves and the forces of the deep state.

So, yeah. Snowden's actions are easy to criticize. And they were illegal, in the purest sense of that word. But was he wrong to distrust Congress? Was he right to believe that the American people deserve to know that their government is violating their rights on a daily basis? Did he have an obligation to choose between going to prison or remaining silent?

Personally, I am glad that the truth came out. And I don't blame Tulsi one bit for refusing to be nagged into calling the man a traitor. That nagging is just designed to distract from the real issue, which is that our government has long been weaponized against us.

anon-w8wg houdini1984
5 hours ago edited
Snowden was kind of simultaneously hero and traitor. His actions absolutely threw a wrench in America's military and intelligence gears (I was in the military at the time). However, he brought to light things that the people needed to know, things that never should have been approved. Personally, I don't have a problem calling him traitor. I have no problem with Tulsi Gabbard not calling him a traitor, though, as long as she notes what was bad about his actions. She did this, which makes her more qualified than most intelligence directors, IMHO.

In fact, now that I think of it, Snowden might have helped put us on the MAGA track. So, maybe there's more good to him than I've given him credit for.

Random US Citizen
11 hours ago
What Snowden did was illegal and punishable by law. On the other hand, Gabbard is right—he also exposed a lot of domestic spying by the U.S. government against its own citizens. It’s interesting—in a sort of horrifying way—that so-called conservative Republicans are more upset that Gabbard opposes Patriot Act overreach than any other issue that came up at her confirmation hearing.

anon-bjec NightStalker
9 hours ago
I doubt we would have had one Trump presidency, much less two, without Snowden. Who would have believed the massive duplicity with which the deep state acts? A lot of us might have actually bought into the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA nonsense, not believed it was even possible for Obama to weaponize the IC against a political opponent. A lot fewer people would have been aware of just how bad the IC and deep state are when operating domestically.

People like Schifty Schiff see Russians under every rock without stepping back to see the big picture. Snowden exposed sources and methods alright. Sources: massive domestic spying apparatus weaponized against Americans. Methods: outrageous violations of every basic tenet of the Constitution and founding principles.

We needed to know.

A sense of crisis among aid groups was growing as U.S.A.I.D.’s website went dark.

In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $72 billion of assistance worldwide on everything from women's health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/AIDS treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work. It provided 42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024. //

NavyVet Largo Patriot
11 hours ago
We should amend the Constitution, if we can't get legislation, that prevents any and all aid, grant, or other funding when the government has a deficit.

If we can't afford to give money away - i.e. government has to borrow money to meet its obligations - then it should be expressly illegal, and, any elected official proposing it should be immediately removed from office and barred from running in the future. //

doctor goodheart Weminuche45
4 hours ago
In my personal experience (Russia 1990's), it's a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to Beltway bandits, with a tiny percent of funds actually hitting the ground in foreign countries.

Per William Easterly's books (e.g. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good), foreign aid has repeatedly been shown to do more damage than good. It creates a large pool of money and therefore power to one tribe vs. another tribe; substitutes US-made food supplies for local growers, thereby perpetuating poverty--and so on and so forth as President Reagan would have said.
Anyway what to the leftists care? They used to be concerned about world poverty. Now they want to worsen it to depopulate the world, or at least keep most of the world unable to have cheap energy, the source of prosperity and health.

BECS are officially referred to as “voluntary,” and supposedly developed by “consensus,” for state and local governments to implement building energy efficiency requirements. The International Code Council (ICC), through its numerous committees, publishes these codes and generates revenues by selling them to whoever needs them (e.g., code officials, builders, trades, etc.). ICC energy codes are organized and managed under a separate division of the ICC called the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). //

“Consensus” building energy codes have been largely and silently commandeered by EERE which has accelerated under the Biden administration. “Consensus” comes through “packing the bleachers” of committees with loyalists to further the Net-Zero concept. Tactics include “improving” building energy efficiency codes through “public/private partnerships.” However, the true cause of Net-Zero policies is to advance electrified “energy efficiency” via “clean” (a.k.a. renewable) energy so that consumers can be more readily controlled. //

RedStorm
9 hours ago
I find energy consumption information useful as a consumer on major appliances, for example. Not that I think I’m ‘saving the planet’ by buying an appliance that uses less energy, but I like knowing relatively what that sucker is going to cost me to operate. Same with mileage information about an automobile. Those are useful regulations, requiring producers to provide information that is of value to consumers. Give me information to make decisions that make sense to me and my lifestyle, don’t restrict my options, let the market take care of that. If only regulators could stay in that lane…

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees, to be applied throughout the executive branch. As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law. Except as provided below, this freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.

This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. Moreover, nothing in this memorandum shall adversely impact the provision of Social Security, Medicare, or Veterans’ benefits. In addition, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may grant exemptions from this freeze where those exemptions are otherwise necessary.

PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS AND EXPANDING INDIVIDUAL OPPORTUNITY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an historic Executive Order that protects the civil rights of all Americans and expands individual opportunity by terminating radical DEI preferencing in federal contracting and directing federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination. It enforces long-standing federal statutes and faithfully advances the Constitution’s promise of colorblind equality before the law. This comprehensive order is the most important federal civil rights measure in decades: //

RESTORING THE VALUES OF INDIVIDUAL DIGNITY, HARD WORK, AND EXCELLENCE: Individual dignity, hard work, and excellence are fundamental to American greatness. This Executive Order reaffirms these values by ending the Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-constitutional and deeply demeaning “equity” mandates, terminating DEI, and protecting civil rights:

Reversing the progress made in the decades since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 toward a colorblind and competence-based workplace, radical DEI has dangerously tainted many of our critical businesses and influential institutions, including the federal government.

• In the private sector, many corporations and universities use DEI as an excuse for biased and unlawful employment practices and illegal admissions preferences, ignoring the fact that DEI’s foundational rhetoric and ideas foster intergroup hostility and authoritarianism.
• Billions of dollars are spent annually on DEI, but rather than reducing bias and promoting inclusion, DEI creates and then amplifies prejudicial hostility and exacerbates interpersonal conflict.

A team including current and former employees of Musk assumed command of OPM on Jan. 20, the day Trump took office. They have moved sofa beds onto the fifth floor of the agency's headquarters, which contains the director's office and can only be accessed with a security badge or a security escort, one of the OPM employees said.

The sofa beds have been installed so the team can work around the clock, the employee said. //

Musk wrote:

Before even getting to timed scripts, the number of government jobs that could be replaced simply with a mouse macro is astounding!

ConservativeInMinnesota
4 hours ago
This is very good news. I’ll bet Musk told Trump to so. I work in InfoSec and this is best practice when there’s a risk of employees sabotaging systems.

Locking out HR means they want to review historical records like job titles without interference. The HR data will help expose deep state operatives via unearned promotions as well as DEI hires.

Expect to see a lot of people let go who worked on DEI, for hiding DEI hires or sneaking political appointees into non-political positions. This is a solid win.

TK421 ConservativeInMinnesota
4 hours ago
Preventing them from hiding what they were doing, especially with respect to DEI crap, does seem like the most likely reason for this action.b

Kneeman TK421
2 hours ago
In Trump 1 he was resisted by the deep state in the shadows of the government. Trump 2: shine lights in those shadows before they have a chance to destroy evidence like the J-6 committee did. They never thought he would lock up the HR records on day 1. Who is working from ‘home’ and charging 20 hours of OT per pay period. Who applied for accommodations for a new disability after Nov. 5 so they could keep working from home. Etc.

stripmallgrackle ConservativeInMinnesota
an hour ago
Post J6. How much research? How many interviews? How many task forces assembled? How much does Trump know that he didn't know at the end of the first term?

Consider the last four years a gift. Add one bumbling figurehead and a successor that instilled no confidence, and the colossal loss to the democrat brand just ices the cake. //

anon-onh5
5 hours ago
"The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said."

I'm gonna stop right there and ask what in the hell those systems were doing unlocked?! After all Obama sold my info once, it's not like it's any better the second time. //

GALTean
5 hours ago
This is to keep malicious actors from’Leaking’ personal information and blaming it on DOGE…this ain’t checkers ya taxpayer fatted dingleberries!

While Democrats don't get it because they like to pretend we have an endless pile of money that we can hand out, former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta gets it and may just have delivered the best remarks I have ever seen from a foreign leader on the subject. His remarks have gone viral, and it's easy to see why. He's talking about countries/leaders who are upset about the freeze on the money and that Trump might not just give out blank checks anymore.

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
·
Former president of Kenya mocks countries who are upset Trump that said he won’t give blank checks anymore to foreign governments.

“Why are you crying? It’s not your government! He has no reason to give you anything. You don’t pay taxes in America.”

11:33 AM · Jan 29, 2025

"Why are you crying? It's not your government, it's not your country," he says to cheers from the audience he was speaking on Wednesday at the East Africa Health Security Summit in Mombasa, Kenya.

"He has no reason to give you anything...You don't pay taxes in America. He's appealing to his people," he continued.

"This is a wake-up call for you to say, 'What are we going to do to help ourselves, instead of crying,'" he declared to more clapping.

"What are we going to do, yah, to support ourselves? Because nobody is going to continue holding out a hand there to give you. It is time to use our resources for the right things. We are the ones using them for the wrong things."

The director of employee and labor relations at the US Agency for International Development has been placed on administrative leave after a stunning refusal to follow directions given by President Trump's transition team.

President Trump followed up his rampage through the National Labor Relations Board (Trump Goes Pearl Harbor on the National Labor Relations Board, Fires Chairman and General Counsel) by firing two Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners and its general counsel. The newly reduced EEOC can no longer bring enforcement actions or initiate rulemaking as it doesn't have a quorum. //

Under Joe Biden, the EEOC bullied companies into submitting to DEI and replacing Equality with Equity.

Much like the defenestrated acting chairman at the NLRB, the two fired Democrats were not happy about the cruel turn of fate. //

Unlike the NLRB commissioner, whose firing seems questionable because the law says NLRB commissioners can only be fired for cause, the EEOC's enabling legislation does not require that.

The EEOC now only has two members and cannot act until President Trump nominates replacements. This is mostly a good thing.

I think there is something else going on with these firings. It seems like the Trump White House may be teeing up a challenge to a Supreme Court case.

In 2020, the CFPB was challenged for its blatantly unconstitutional structure. Under the law, it was managed by a single director who could only be removed "for cause." The Supreme Court agreed that allowing a single individual to control an agency outside the reach of the president to remove them was unconstitutional.

I believe the target of Trump's removal of three commissioners, one who can only be removed for cause and two without similar protections, is to convince the Supreme Court to overturn Humphrey's Executor vs. United States. This 1935 decision held that the president could only remove the commissioner of independent agencies for reasons established by Congress. The Selia decision established that did not apply to single commissioners; Trump wants to take a run at it to see if he can get that precedent overturned the way Chevron was reversed last summer; //

We'll see how this turns out, but even if Trump is wrong, the NLRB and EEOC will not be lumbering about the countryside and disturbing the livestock until the Supreme Court speaks. //

OrneryCoot
3 hours ago
There is something inherently wrong with the idea that the leader of the executive branch of government cannot fire persons under his authority, tasked with implementing his policy, in the executive branch. That is all kinds of "only in Washington" dumb. Trump is right to blast through that and try to tee up a SCOTUS decision. In the meantime, I will breathe a sigh of relief that these people are removed from their positions of power. Democrat appointed workers in the administrative state are open sores that need to be cut out.

There's good news for federal employees who were unhappy to learn they were expected to return to working in the office under the new Trump administration: They have another option — a buyout.

The White House will issue a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don't want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6, an administration official tells Axios. //

There's good news for federal employees who were unhappy to learn they were expected to return to working in the office under the new Trump administration: They have another option — a buyout.

The White House will issue a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don't want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6, an administration official tells Axios. //

We're five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable," a senior administration official tells Axios.

• The White House expects 5% to 10% of federal employees to accept the offer, which would potentially mean hundreds of thousands of people.
• The administration projects the buyouts could ultimately save taxpayers up to $100 billion a year.

Zoom out: The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security. //

Further details of the offer — and the administration's approach — can be found at the Office of Personnel Management website under the heading "Fork in the Road": https://www.opm.gov/fork //

With a federal workforce of two million employees, if between 5 and 10 percent of them accept the offer, that means up to 200,000 may elect to leave federal employment. And, realistically, the ones who do are those most likely to not be in sync with the Trump administration's policies and aims, so...win-win, right?

President Trump has ordered as many as 60 senior bureaucrats in the US Agency for International Development placed on indefinite leave for taking actions to evade his executive orders. A memo from acting USAID administrator Jason Gray says, "We have identified several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the president’s executive orders and the mandate from the American people.“ As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions.”

This action effectively shuts down most of USAID's $22.6 billion in program support. //

This review will be painful in some places, but that is a small price to pay for stamping out the "I know better" ethos so present in the senior executive and foreign service. //

Locked and Loaded
2 hours ago
“This is a huge morale hit,” said a former senior Trump administration official who was also told of the move. “This is the leadership of the agency. This is like taking out all the generals. I don't know what they hope to accomplish by it.”

And that's why you are a former Trump administration official. //

SC Patriot EzraTank
2 hours ago
Administrative Leave is the first step in firing for cause. If the investigation confirms willful disobedience of lawful directives from the President they'll be terminated for cause, meaning they can't be rehired elsewhere in the Federal Government and it isn't going to look good on their resume. Diligently following the administrative process steps for termination will ensure they cannot later file a wrongful termination lawsuit or claim an EEOC action, protecting the American taxpayer further.

BRENNAN: You know FEMA has specialized expertise that some of these states just don't have in their arsenal...

VANCE: Oh, Margaret, I wish that they...

BRENNAN: And how will these states who are lower-income states, the Mississippis, the Kentuckys, the Alabamas, be able to do this for themselves without federal help?

VANCE: Well, the president, to be clear, is not saying we are going to leave anybody behind. He's saying that the way in which we administrator these resources, some of which is coming from the federal level, some of which is coming from the state level, we've got to get the bureaucrats out of the way and get the aid to the people who need it most.

Look at the disgust on her face as she calls red states "low-income" hellholes that can't possibly manage themselves without overpaid, useless federal bureaucrats telling them what to do. Notice that she didn't bother to mention California, though, which has shown a lack of ability to effectively respond to natural disasters. Instead, she only sneers at those uneducated rubes in the "Mississippis, Kentuckys, and Alabamas."

That's not an accident. People like Brennan live in a bubble where they truly think credentialism and dollar totals on a spreadsheet dictate competency. For example, calling the above states "low-income" and suggesting that makes them incapable ignores that the cost of living exists. Incomes are indeed lower in Southern states but so are costs, which means the standard of living is not necessarily any worse than high-cost blue states.

Yet, Brennan sees the average income and just assumes everyone in Alabama is an idiot because that's the mindset held by Beltway dwellers such as herself. They can't fathom that other people are not only just as smart as they are but in many cases, are smarter. There's a reason the top states in the country regarding economic growth and employment are almost exclusively Republican-led states, many that Brennan would claim are "low-income."

The reality is that the federal bureaucracies have shown themselves to be the most incompetent entities in the country. If they had "specialized expertise" that simply can't be replicated at the state level, then North Carolinians wouldn't still be living in tents right now.