Americans who aren’t utterly stupid may recall a design: Donald Trump does something that has little or no discernible impact on your daily life and the media yells about the” chaos” after having now lived through a Trump administration. Yeah, that hasn’t changed.
This week’s stories include:
” Trump Freezes Trillions. Chaos Ensues”. — , New York Times
” Federal judge stones Trump’s federal spending ice following a time of chaos” — Washington Post
” Trump support freeze stirs panic before it is blocked in courtroom”— Reuters
” Trump’s saving ice spreads conflict across US” — , Politico
As a result of Trump’s directive to pause spending and generate reports outlining the projects and services they are paying for, I’m convinced that a total of 0 people reading this right now experienced sleep deprivation. A few of you might not have ever had much sleep.
The reason the news media obviously didn’t read the memo that was the summarizing the orders was causing any disturbance to the level that there was any. Writers in Washington repeatedly asked on cable news and during the White House press presentation on Tuesday whether social security, Medicare, and food aid may be impacted. Nothing in this letter may be interpreted as having an impact on Medicare or Social Security benefits, according to the directive. Additionally, it stated more broadly that “assistance provided instantly to individuals” is exempt from the momentary pause on” Federal monetary assistance.”
There are of course many people in charge of national companies who are either unwilling or capable of doing anything that detracts from just “green-lighting” the stream of tax dollars no matter where they are, so there were reports of agencies who were left uncertain of how the advice was applied to them. But that’s not conflict. That’s called shift.
Turns out this new leadership is acting in a strange way and showing an interest in what an endless stream of federal authorities are doing all day. What do they spend their money on, and is any of it a waste? Duh, that’s why they were told to account for it so that some of it — , maybe a lot of it — , may become targeted for breaks.
In any case, a federal prosecutor in Washington halted the wait, saying that more time was required to assess the possibility that the spending freeze would cause “irreparable harm.” ( We could only hope. ) And on Wednesday, the management completely canceled the memo, choosing instead to renew a more thorough version so that the ever-useful authorities workers can understand it. Either approach, the false panic over the false conflict is sure to proceed.
A politician being given instructions to do something may render Washington and the press a little uneasy, a strategy known as “work.” That’s good for a change, but it isn’t conflict for anyone else.
