The anatomy of a coup d’état:

It started with the wholesale firing of dozens of good, honest employees who were devoted to doing the jobs with which they had been entrusted, and were not willing to become the personal lackeys of a single, power-crazed individual.

The second step was to replace those suddenly unemployed individuals with loyal sycophants who would do anything to earn a place near the seat of power . . . including the seizure of the confidential data of millions of federal employees, and locking out those workers who had spent their careers guarding that very information.

In ages past, the next move would likely have been to seize the railways and telegraph offices. But those halcyon days are long gone, and it’s much simpler now to have one’s sidekick use his technological resources to seize all the electronic data.

Therefore, the third target became the one thing that makes the world go ‘round: the money. And that meant a takeover of the U.S. Treasury.

“Impossible!” I hear you cry. “Unspeakable!” “Un-American!” “Treasonous!”

Well, you’re certainly right about the last three. But there was no reason for anyone at the Treasury Department to be concerned about a routine visit from a presidential transition team about a week before the January inauguration to discuss the seamless handover of authority. After all, they weren’t armed . . . not with AK-47s or Molotov cocktails, at any rate.

But this meeting was not routine. Unexpectedly — and quite unusually — the team battered the Treasury officials with specific questions concerning its Bureau of the Fiscal Service, “an arcane branch that distributes nearly 90 percent of all federal payments, including Social Security benefits, tax refunds and payments to federal workers and contractors. That adds up to a billion annual transactions totaling more than $5 trillion.” [Katelyn Polantz, Phil Mattingly and Tierney Sneed, CNN, February 1, 2025.]

On Friday, January 31st, acting U.S. Secretary of the Treasury David Lebryk suddenly left his post “after Trump-affiliated officials expressed interest in stopping certain payments made by the federal government, according to three people familiar with the situation.” [Id.]

And now, Elon Musk and his DOGE associates have total access to the U.S. government’s payments systems.

When an individual familiar with the department — who wished to remain anonymous — was asked about the matter, the reply was:

“They [the Trump/Musk team] seem to want Treasury to be the chokepoint on payments, and that’s unprecedented.” That individual further emphasized that it is not the Bureau’s role to decide which payments to make — it is “just to make the f-ing payments.” [Id.]

This action followed closely on the heels of Trump’s earlier, unsuccessful attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal spending. And while the nation’s leadership does not normally concern itself with the day-to-day logistics of issuing payments, Trump’s team has, according to career officials, shown an “odd interest” in the inner workings of the process . . . raising suspicions about the administration’s possible intentions of disrupting the entire operation of the nation’s economy. [Id.]

We all know — but sometimes tend to forget — that what affects the U.S. economy also affects the world’s economy. So while we sit here wondering what’s going to happen to our Social Security benefits, our tax refunds, Medicare and Medicaid coverage, the price of everything, and whether the poorest of our citizens will even be able to eat next month, the rest of the world trembles right along with us.

But no matter . . . because the Washington Billionaires Club is looking out for us.

*. *. *

And this, my fellow Americans, is the government that half of you voted for.

Happy now?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/3/25