They Found Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: It's Them

 They Found the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: It’s Them

Trump, Musk, and Congressional Republicans declare daily that federal government programs authorized and budgeted for agencies established by Congress and signed into law by US president are riddled with “waste, fraud, and abuse (of power).” Trump and Musk created a fake “Department of Government Efficiency,” (DOGE) to root it out. A real department must be authorized by law; DOGE is essentially an advisory council. 

If they were really interested in reducing the inevitable waste, fraud, and abuse that exists in systems involving millions of employees, contractors, and billions in grants, loans, and contracts administered and sometimes scammed by human beings, they would beef up the systems that were created by law to search out, end, and punish it. Democrats would work with them to do this, and it would be the lawful and efficient way of doing the job.

Instead, on Day 1 of his administration, Trump fired the Inspectors General of 18 agencies whose job it is to find and end that waste, who in previous years have indeed found and ended billions of dollars of wasteful and fraudulent spending, clawed much of it back, and referred investigations to the Justice Department. Trump’s actions seem more like a move designed to allow his appointees actually to commit the waste, fraud, and abuse of his choosing.

With encouragement from Musk, who is making X (formerly Twitter) into a banking service and Republicans who love to protect their rich banking friends, Trump’s new Treasury Secretary has shuttered the Consumer Fraud and Protection Department (CFPD). CFPD protects American consumers from predatory lenders, abusive credit card policies, and oversees banks to prevent them from cheating Americans. It’s saved Americans billions since being created in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

Trump (falsely) declared a national emergency at the southern border and sent thousands of troops who the NY Times reports are standing around doing not much since illegal border crossings had been slowing over the last year or so and migrant shelters are closing because they’re not needed.

He is trying to shut down USAID and all its activities were halted. Hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of authorized, purchased, and shipped life saving food and medicines headed to the poorest countries in the world are sitting in ships and warehouses, expiring or rotting. If the next plague reaches our shores, we’ll know who to blame. Meanwhile tens of thousands will sicken and die in countries that will turn to Russia and China or terrorist groups like ISIS for the help we are refusing to offer.

To reinforce his false claims that undocumented migrants are violent criminals, he decided to fly many of them to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, probably the most wasteful and expensive prison in the world where all supplies need to be shipped or flown in and it costs $13 million per year per inmate to imprison a few accused terrorists detained in the early 2000s. 

He uses military aircraft to deport migrants because it looks tougher than sending them via charter or commercial airliners as Biden and previous administrations did. It’s estimated to cost at least 4 times as much using this method.

dThese are only a few of many egregious examples of the fraudulent claims, wasteful spending, and abuse of power Trump, Musk, and his Republican supporters in Congress are authorizing or allowing. Trump and Musk are, contrary to lawful methods, capriciously and maliciously laying off, placing on leave, and firing thousands of dedicated and hardworking public employees claiming waste, fraud and abuse without evidence. Many of these employees are still being being paid, but not allowed to continue their work researching cures for cancer, prosecuting dangerous criminals, protecting America’s interests around the world, and more.

If Trump, Musk, and Republicans actually want to see waste, fraud and abuse in government, they can look in the mirror.

Published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail 2/18/25

Jimmy Carter and DEI

The death of President Jimmy Carter gives us all a chance to reflect on the current moment as well as the accomplishments and decades of service of a president who faced tremendous challenges during his one term in office including high inflation and a hostage crisis. Both of those problems plagued Joe Biden as well and contributed to his loss of popularity resulting in a one term presidency.

Those of us who lived through the 1970s likely remember Carter’s response to the gas crisis brought on by an Arab oil embargo and, as he wore a sweater, his plea to Americans to keep the thermostat at 65ºF to reduce fuel consumption. He placed solar panels on the White House, in a demonstration of one way to make America energy independent. Even then, climate activists were warning about Global Warming, and while Carter didn’t make solving that a priority, an internal memo revealed his awareness that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels was warming the planet and that continued burning of fossil fuels would one day become a danger to the planet.

He was much maligned for being unable to negotiate the release of the American embassy staff held hostage by Iranian students after the Iranian Revolution led to the formation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many Americans thought we should go to war and the popularity of a version of the Beach Boys hit song Barbara Ann with a revised refrain, “Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb bomb Iran” was an indication of the pressure he was under to DO something about it. When he called off a rescue attempt after a helicopter crash killing eight servicemen, he was mercilessly criticized as if he had been the mechanic responsible for its failure. Yet Carter continued negotiating until his last day in office and secured their release as Reagan took the oath of office. Was he ever given credit for the lives he saved by keeping us out of war? Similarly, Biden couldn’t live down the perception that 13 brave soldiers who died in a terrorist bomb during the Afghanistan withdrawal couldn’t counter the lives he saved by finally ending a war that had dragged on over 20 years killing almost 2500 Americans.

While his legacy is much broader than his years in the Presidency, Carter’s stance on the importance of upholding human rights for our allies as well as our adversaries during his presidency marked a significant change from the willingness of previous administrations to look the other way even when an ally perpetrated horrors on its own people. Carter believed that, as Reagan later said, America was a “shining city on the hill” and in order for the world to hold us in high esteem, we must model exemplary behavior at home and demand it of others.

He believed that civil rights for all Americans were paramount. When he was elected Governor of Georgia, he declared that “the time for discrimination is over. No poor, rural, weak or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job or simple justice,” In forming the Carter Center, he took action in defense of the right of all people worldwide to fundamental freedoms and rights, monitoring elections, writing letters to and meeting with world leaders to plead the case of individuals and groups facing discrimination and human rights abuses and much more.

Which brings me to today and the demonization of a point of view and a program designed to make our country one that seeks to implement Martin Luther King and Jimmy Carter’s dream that Americans would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That point of view, which President-elect Trump and his cronies in the Republican party like Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, have claimed is causing discrimination to white people and Christians, is called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or DEI. 

DeSantis and his Republican super majority in the Florida legislature have banned DEI in Florida schools, including colleges, and now major corporations including Walmart, Ford, and Lowe’s have decided to roll back or end their DEI initiatives apparently to stay on the right side of the incoming administration.

Stop and think for a minute about what it means to be against DEI. Diversity refers to efforts to ensure that people of all colors, religions, and genders are represented and respected. Before  diversity was allowed or encouraged in the American workplace, we had businesses and colleges of primarily White Christian men. Is that what we want to go back to? 

The opposite of equity is unfairness, lack of equality. People of color, gays, Muslims, Jews, Mormons and others were once unfairly discriminated against without recourse. Do these Republicans want us to go back to that? 

And if we lack inclusion, we allow exclusion: keep them out so we don’t have to think about treating them fairly once they’re here. I feel confident that Jimmy Carter believed, as do most Americans, that diversity is our strength, equity is our goal, and inclusion of all kinds is our responsibility. We’re not going back. Jimmy Carter, born to a peanut farmer in a majority black town in Georgia, believed in DEI and promoted it through the Carter Center. So must we.

(published in Charleston Gazette-Mail, Jan 3, 2025)

Dark Humor is the Best Medicine

Laughter is the best medicine goes the old saw. That’s right, one that’s too dull to cut, but when you try to cut a board with it, it’s likely to slip off and cut you. I’m not sure if the howl I let out when I heard the news that President-elect Trump plans to nominate Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as U.S. Attorney General of the U.S., the top law enforcement officer of the nation, was a howl of laughter or howl of pain. My wife rushed into the kitchen where I was cooking dinner to see if I was okay. I’m not. It was laughter, but this laughter is painful and I don’t know if it’s going to make me better. 

For the next four years, if I laugh at the antics of the clown car that Trump is installing, it will be a mixture of outrage and pain. Behind the shock, the insanity, the fundamental cruelty that underlies the story of the day, the actual results will be anything but funny for the people being maligned, prosecuted, rounded up to be detained or forced out of the country, going hungry, dying or being maimed for lack of necessary healthcare, losing their savings, losing their jobs, or any of the other possible harms we will face under an incompetent, malevolent federal leadership. 

Take everything that follows as an attempt at the blackest humor (according to dictionary.com: a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic).

Congressman Gaetz is such an amazing pick for that job because, of course, he’s been accused of sex-trafficking of a 17 year old girl and illicit drug use, and was subject to a Congressional Ethics Investigation for that and for accepting possibly illegal gifts. The report was set to be released Friday, and may have resulted in his expulsion from Congress, so Trump’s lifeline announcement allowed him to safely resign from his seat before the possible consequences could be enforced. Hilarious! Trump really stuck it to the libs! 

If only Jeffrey Epstein were still alive. He could have been pardoned and installed as special advisor to the President on women and children. Can you imagine the howls from the lame stream media on that? That would have been so awesome!

Speaking of awesome. How about Robert F. Kennedy for health czar? Finally someone who understands that the only thing better than being safe from deadly diseases is to experience those diseases for yourself and conquer them with your natural human vigor and strength instead of so-called lifesaving vaccines and medications. Think Darwin’s survival of the fittest. The problem with our modern world is that we allow too many weak individuals to survive. Disease should be given a fair shot at thinning the herd. In the words of one great thinker of the 20th century, “The state has the responsibility of declaring as unfit for reproductive purposes anyone who is obviously ill or genetically unsound ... and must carry through with this responsibility ruthlessly without respect to understanding or lack of understanding on the part of anyone”—Adolph Hitler, in “Mein Kampf,” 1925. See, he had a plan, kind of like the brilliant, forward thinking document “Project 2025.” 

What are the qualities of a great leader? If you’re thinking integrity, competence, character, honesty, collaboration and such, you are SO OLD SCHOOL (speaking of which, who needs school when you have AI and who needs money when you have Crypto!). 

A truly great leader must come across knowledgeable and suave on television. Central casting. Only the best looking (and the richest) qualify in the Trump administration because they are the ones most able to deliver the TRUTH to the American people. Oh, did I point out the meaning of truth? Yeah, words aren’t what they seem. As George Orwell points out in 1984, “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength….It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” Such beautiful words to live by!

I could go on. And I will, some other day. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll build a bunker stocked for at least four years. Maybe I’d better make it 20, surely he won’t live longer than that.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston 

published in the 11/16/24 weekend edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail

West Virginia's Economy/Politics Similar to Rural Germany's says Krugman

Generally, when West Virginia gets mentioned in a national news outlet, we grit our teeth and wait to see how negative the portrayal is. Then we shake our heads at how, once again, we’re not understood by the elites.

Many West Virginians probably feel that way about Paul Krugman’s opinion column in the New York Times entitled, “The Political Rage of Left-Behind Regions”, Sept 3, 2024. Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist, so agree or not, his opinions regarding the economy are worth considering.

He begins with recent local elections in Germany, in which a right-wing party, Alliance for Germany (AfD) did better than any right wing party in Germany since WWII, especially in Thuringia, a German state, which Krugman says resembles West Virginia economically. Politics are similar in that most voters support Donald Trump’s MAGA right wing politics. Krugman focuses his analysis on West Virginia, because it “epitomizes both the economic and political problems of left-behind regions.”

The stand out economic statistic Krugman highlights is the percentage of men not working. Lack of employment is also high for women, but jobs, Krugman contends, are for men a source of dignity; lacking a job when they feel they should be working can make them feel shame, which can then turn into “anger, a desire to blame someone else and lash out.”

Krugman, comparing WV to New Jersey, points out that a Trump/Vance talking point that immigrants are taking jobs from white men is not true. In West Virginia, the immigrant population is under 2% while in NJ it is almost 25% and lack of jobs among white men is far higher in WV than in NJ.

How does Krugman describe the causes? Simply put, the majority of good jobs are in high tech industries “that flourish in metropolitan areas with highly educated work forces.” Young people from WV and around the country who are qualified often leave here for those jobs or to work the service and construction jobs available in those places. 

What about those left behind who can’t find work here? The social safety net, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, SNAP (food stamps) and other federal programs bring far more money into the state than is going out in federal taxes. These programs actually create some jobs. In addition to the federal government providing money for people to spend on food and services, “West Virginia may think of itself as a coal-mining state, but by the numbers it has long been more accurately described as a health care state, with much of its employment ultimately driven by those federal dollars.”

Trump and Republican claims that they support working people are belied by their failure to support legislation the Biden-Harris administration and Democrats passed to bring manufacturing and high-speed Internet to underserved communities like those in WV. The tariffs Trump is calling for (Kamala Harris calls them ‘the Trump sales tax’), would raise prices on goods, but most economists don’t believe they will bring manufacturing back to the USA. They didn’t during Trump’s first term. 

The irony is that, “the politicians (that) angry heartland voters support (Trump received twice as many votes in West Virginia in 2020)  oppose the very programs that aid these depressed areas….they channel this anger into support for politicians who will make their plight worse.”

Take it from a Nobel Prize winning economist, or from me, a retired public school teacher. If Donald Trump is elected president, his promises will not result in what Jim Justice falsely promised when he was elected Governor. West Virginia’s economy will not take off like a rocket ship.

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston 

Democracy isn't Professional Wrestling

Poor Donald Trump. He had President Biden on the ropes and saw certain victory ahead until Kamala Harris jumped in the ring, and along with her buddy, Coach Walz of Minnesota, they’re in the process of taking him down as the crowd cheers with delight!

Sounds a lot like one of Donald Trump’s favorite fake sports, professional wrestling, in which the outcome is pre-determined and tag team partners can turn the tide in a theatrical last minute save.

But this is not a fake sport, it’s life and death for democracy in America. While Trump and Vance fit the image of the trash talking personification of evil portrayed by some professional wrestlers and Harris and Walz seem to represent the joyful warriors on the side of everything good, the results are not pre-determined and it remains to be seen who will prevail in the public arena after the votes are cast and accurately counted.

And though the referees, aka the Supreme Court, have demonstrated favoritism for the former president by clearing the way for him to avoid further criminal trials before the election for his alleged, but well documented criminal behavior in and since office, they will likely have no role to play in the final outcome if enough Americans cast their votes for the forces of light over darkness.

Novelists, comic book artists, movie makers, playwrights could not manufacture such stereotypical characters or situations as we have in this election ripe for the melodrama of the ages, and no doubt this period in American history will be the subject of fact and fiction for centuries, at least if Trump doesn’t become the dictator his allies who designed “Project 2025” sketch out should he win. 

In that America, as in autocracies around the world, over time the media will cease to be free to report the truth, schools will be banned from accurately teaching history, health care, child care, and labor rights will be trashed, books will be banned, internment camps will be created to round up immigrants for deportation, the Justice Department will become a weapon to be wielded by a vindictive dictator, our foreign policy will become a cash machine for the president and his cronies.


While professional wrestling is an entertaining fantasy, there is nothing entertaining about this contest. The stakes are real and the outcome is life and death, not for the contestants, but for many of us, the audience. We the people have the power to determine the outcome through our dedication to preserving Freedom and the American Way as did Superman during World War II (oh, wait, that was a fantasy). 

Seriously, here in West Virginia, it may be impossible to affect the national election results, but by donating and volunteering we may have an effect on the outcome in the swing states that will determine the final results. And who knows, the current enthusiasm may filter down to our state and local races. If enough of us organize and exercise the singular most powerful force in America, the power of the people to vote, we may be able to turn out deadbeats like Jim Justice and others who work to benefit corporations and the rich over the rest of us. When we vote, we win!

published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail Aug 14, 2024

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

No, Lindsey, Israel Shouldn't Drop "the Bomb"

 

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R, SC), speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press May 12th, forcefully defended Israel’s right to defend itself, even to the point of annihilating virtually the entire of population of Gaza. “When we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by the bombing [of] Hiroshima [and] Nagasaki with nuclear weapons. That was the right decision.” Graham added, “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war. They can’t afford to lose.” If this is the accepted Republican position, it is not one that will make America great in the eyes of the world now or in the future.

The only thing I can agree with Graham on in that statement is that Israel can’t afford to lose, but they are in no danger of “losing” to Hamas at this point, or even on October 7th, when Hamas was at its strongest and perpetrating atrocities on Jews and anyone else they encountered during their rampage in the south of Israel. 

I was raised in a Jewish family, have a brother with four children and four grandchildren living in Israel, and was in Israel the week before October 7 attending his youngest child’s wedding. I don’t expect anyone to believe I can have an objective viewpoint, so will just say what I think and hope that anyone reading this will hear other viewpoints and make up their own minds about what is true and morally defensible in this fraught situation.

My wife and I have visited the Harry Truman Presidential Library and Museum and while there learned that many scholars who’ve studied the documents and historical records about the decision to use the atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki argue it was not necessary to achieve victory. Germany had already surrendered and Japan knew they had lost the war and were fighting on as a matter of pride or willingness to sacrifice their soldiers. It was certainly not the case, as Graham argues above, of risking the destruction of our nation if we didn’t destroy those two cities, indiscriminately killing at least 200,000 men, women, and children. 

Today, there is absolutely no doubt that such an act would be considered a war crime or crime against humanity, if not genocide. We should not be encouraging Israel to follow our example in their war against Hamas.

I support the existence of the country of Israel as a majority Jewish nation, which was first established by UN Resolution 181 in 1947. I also support the right of the Palestinians (who fled or were displaced by the war declared on the new country by all the surrounding Arab nations) to establish an independent state in what is usually referred to as a two state solution on terms and territories to be designated by negotiation.

Yet I, like many American and Israeli Jews, am upset by the policies of the government of Israel in recent years that are clearly not moving Israel any closer to that two state solution and in the meantime are treating the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza in ways that are often discriminatory, violent, and at times, inhumane.

That does not justify Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7, and Israel has the right, in my opinion, to attempt to destroy their military capabilities and try to rescue the hostages, which include some Americans. They also have the responsibility of minimizing the injury and death of civilians despite Hamas’s tactics of hiding in tunnels under civilian infrastructure including schools and hospitals. 

Israel is also responsible for ensuring that food, medicine, and shelter are supplied to Gazans. They have obviously not done this adequately, and those responsible for any war crimes that may have been committed (on both sides) must be brought to justice.

I fully support President Biden’s efforts to both assist the Israelis in their defense and to try to influence Netanyahu’s often intransigent government to act within the currently recognized “rules of war.” That includes efforts to supply direct humanitarian aid to the Gazans through the construction of the floating dock to bring in supplies by sea and Biden’s withholding of bombs too big for use in urban environments or other offensive weapons he designates to pressure Netanyahu to keep humanitarian aid flowing and protect civilians. I can’t agree with Senator Bernie Sanders call to completely cut off military aid to Israel just as I can’t agree with Senator Graham.

I hope that most Americans can tell the difference between a country that is defending itself from terrorists and a country that is intentionally killing civilians, and I hope that Israel is focused on the former and punishes anyone in its ranks engaged in the latter. My brother, who has served in the Israeli reserves and works to bring together Jerusalem’s Arabs and Jews to build healthy communities says, “Most Israelis now recognize that Netanyahu’s coalition mush be voted out of office as soon as possible. The question is, will it be in time?” 

Paul Epstein is a retired teacher and musician living in Charleston

Trump the Cheat

While running for president in 2016, Donald Trump made campaign promises, many of which he kept, unfortunately.

For instance, he promised to ban Muslims from entering the United States. This also applied to Afghans who had helped our military. They were cheated out of their promised right to seek safety in the United States when Trump proclaimed an end to immigration from various Muslim-majority nations. That was overturned because it was a clearly discriminatory executive action, but his lawyers’ revisions made it acceptable to the increasingly conservative Supreme Court.

He also promised to tax the rich and that his tax policies wouldn’t be good for him, personally. That turned out to be a lie. The only major legislation he and the Republican Congress passed in his four years as president was a $17 trillion tax cut that almost entirely benefited corporations and the wealthy, including him, his business and his family. It cheated the rest of us, who are stuck with paying the debt from even larger deficits.

Even so, Republicans have chosen Trump, again, to be their leader and candidate for president, despite the fact that, in a word, he is a cheat. He has many character flaws, in my view, but many of them flow from the fact that he wants to “win” so badly that he is not only willing, but seems compelled, to cheat.

He has been proven to be a cheater in courts and by highly respected news organizations that diligently research allegations to determine the truth. Trump cheats on his wives, his taxes, in his businesses, even at golf. He cheated people who donated to his charitable foundation by using the money for his campaign in 2016 and for personal expenses. He was fined $2 million and the so-called charity was dissolved.

He cheats his customers, for instance at Trump “University,” which cheated people out of thousands of dollars promising to make them rich real estate dealers like him. He eventually paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits from fleeced individuals. As a builder, he cheated contractors, many of whom lost their businesses after his refusal to pay his bills and his ability to endlessly litigate their lawsuits that tried to force payment.

Most importantly, Donald J. Trump cheated to win the presidential election in 2016 and cheated to try to stay in office after he lost the presidential election in 2020 to Joe Biden.

He is in court four days a week now, facing felony charges for reportedly cheating during the 2016 election by paying to suppress damaging stories to keep them from voters, and falsifying business records to avoid disclosing the payments as campaign expenses. The payoffs were made right after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public. That was the one that caught him boasting he could kiss and fondle women at will. He feared, if allegations of affairs by two adult film actresses got out, he would lose even more votes. Court documents reveal that he suggested delaying the payments to Stormy Daniels until after the election, so he could allegedly cheat her of the promised money.

Eventually, unless the Supreme Court agrees with his contention that presidents can’t be charged with having broken the law while they were president, he’ll be tried in federal criminal court for cheating in a multitude of ways in his unsuccessful effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump stacked the Supreme Court with right-wing extremists, with help from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who cheated Democratic presidents of the right to appoint two justices by refusing to consider a replacement for Antonin Scalia after he died in February 2016, claiming nine months was too close to the next presidential election. Then, in a complete reversal, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died only two months before the 2020 election, he rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

It’s worth noting that, even if they rule against Trump, conservatives on the court, including his three appointments, have already delayed this decision long enough to make it doubtful that Trump can be tried on those charges before the election.

Most people accused of a crime who say they aren’t guilty want a quick trial to clear their name. Trump’s strategy is to cheat the voters of the crucial answer to the question of his guilt by delaying his trials until after the election, when, if he should win, he might try to order them dismissed.

“Cheaters never prosper” turns out not to be true. But “nobody likes a cheater” is a belief almost all of us share. Before you vote for Donald Trump, or when speaking to anyone who intends to vote for him, remember this adage: “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” 

(this essay appeared in the April 23rd edition of the Charleston Gazette-Mail (WV)