Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency in Donald Trump’s presidential administration, has expressed in a new interview his disappointment in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which the United States House of Representatives approved last week.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is in the news for claiming it has eliminated several Census Bureau surveys and that it will be reviewing others in turn. That may do some good. But how about the US government takes a much bigger step and limits the Census Bureau to conducting the one and only census task provided for in the United States Constitution — a once every ten years census that would take about ten seconds for each person in America to answer?
Donald Trump’s presidential administration has made it clear it is an opponent of free speech through its cracking down on individuals and colleges in an effort to silence negative comments about the Israel government. This animosity to free speech was widely reported in a new context last week when high level Trump administration officials lined up to express their horror that former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, via a post at Instagram, purportedly threatened the life of President Trump.
On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives approved yet again legislation (this time H. Res. 352) to counter “antisemitism” — something the US government has been redefining for its purposes as going beyond being related to race, ethnicity, or religion so that it also includes criticizing the government of Israel. In its concluding section the resolution states, in addition to a couple other demands, that the House “calls on elected officials, faith leaders, and civil society leaders to condemn and counter all acts of antisemitism.”
Cops enforce laws. On first impression that may seem a good thing as one considers long in place laws, such as against assault, murder, and theft, that can help protect individuals’ ability to live in peace. But, laws have proliferated over time in America so that cops are spending a significant portion of their effort enforcing laws against things like drugs and even speech — acting to restrain instead of protect the exercise of individual rights.
We have seen this play out before, the United States government relentlessly acting to control the government in a former Soviet Union republic bordering Russia and then proceeding to support that government in war against Russia. That course of action has led to devastation in Ukraine, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals, in a US proxy war against Russia. Through Monday approval in the United States House of Representatives of the Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence Act (MEGOBARI Act) by a vote of 349 to 42, the House took a big step toward a replay of this disaster in Georgia.
Speaking Tuesday before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations regarding the implementation of REAL ID mandates on travelers, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem displayed succinctly in one sentence her disdain for the right of Americans to travel freely and her support instead for an authoritarian approach to travel.
In a Friday message to board members of the Libertarian National Committee that oversees the United States Libertarian Party, party Chairman Steven Nekhaila wrote that “This board may very well be the last one standing between the Libertarian National Committee and full collapse.”
The Republican-majority United States House of Representatives demonstrated this week, through votes on several relatively modest bills, that it will just keep demanding more US government spending and control. Republican representatives often claim to support limited government and frugality, but mostly they, and their Democratic Party colleagues, keep acting as government-loving spendthrifts.
Supporters of liberty had much reason for hope due to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. becoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This man’s tenacity and eloquence in challenging the coronavirus crackdowns suggested great potential accomplishments for both liberty and health at HHS with him in the lead.