DL Open Thread: Sunday, March 30, 2025

Musk/DOGE’s Push For The Privatization Of Public Services:

Mail delivery. Real estate. Foreign aid grants. The Trump administration is moving to privatize a sweeping number of government functions and assets — a long-standing Republican goal that’s being catalyzed by billionaire Elon Musk.

The slash-and-burn approach of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is paving the way for a new shift to the private sector, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy in a real-world test of the conservative theory — a version of which is also widely popular in Silicon Valley — that companies are better than government at saving money and responding to people’s needs.

(Hmmm, don’t companies have to make, what’s that word, profits?  Which come right out of any alleged ‘savings’ that privatization might create?)

Louisiana Governor Goes 0 for 4 On Proposed Constitutional Amendments.  Pretty good indication that anger is palpable, even in bright red Louisiana:

In a stunning rejection of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, Louisiana voters turned down all four of his constitutional amendments Saturday, including the governor’s plan to overhaul the state’s tax and budget laws.

Nearly two-thirds of voters rejected all of the amendments in an election that could have broader political implications for the rest of Landry’s term.

The governor, who has sometimes relied on strong-arm tactics to get his agenda through the Louisiana Legislature, could become more vulnerable to pushback after failing to pass his most ambitious policy proposal at the ballot box.

Guess whose fault it was:

In a statement after the outcome was certain, the governor attributed the defeat of Amendment 2 to billionaire George Soros, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who conservatives have targeted  for  several years for his support of liberal causes.

“Soros and far left liberals poured millions into Louisiana with propaganda and outright lies about Amendment 2,” Landry said. “Although we are disappointed in tonight’s results, we do not see this as a failure. We realize how hard positive change can be to implement in a State that is conditioned for failure. … This is not the end for us, and we will continue to fight to make the generational changes for Louisiana to succeed.”

And yet:

Landry had support for Amendment 2 from another controversial billionaire. Conservative Republican Charles Koch is the founder of Americans for Prosperity, a group that knocked on doors, ran phone banks and sent out direct mail in favor of the proposal.

Guess Soros’ ‘lies’ were more effective than those of the remaining Koch Bro.

Texas Has Measles.  400 cases now, 398 of whom weren’t vaccinated.  Statistical anomaly?  Uh, doesn’t look like it:

Leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered staff this week not to release their experts’ assessment that found the risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica.

In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show.

A CDC spokesperson told ProPublica in a written statement that the agency decided against releasing the assessment “because it does not say anything that the public doesn’t already know.”

That sound you just heard was of two more of my brain cells dying.  There’s also this:

Robert F. Kennedy’s Jr. war on vaccines just landed another major blow as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services successfully forced one of the nation’s top vaccine officials out of his position.

Dr. Peter Marks, who was given the choice by HHS officials to either be fired or step down as the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, announced his resignation on Friday.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks reportedly wrote in his letter of resignation. He added that leaving his position was a “weight lifted from me” as working in this environment “was spiraling deeper and deeper into danger.”

Reckless insanity now guides America’s public health policy in the form of the worm-eaten brain of RFK Jr.

What do you want to talk about?