EIGHT MEN ALL IN

EIGHT MEN ALL IN

By Andy Weddington

Saturday, 29 March 2025

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all the brains that I can borrow.  - Woodrow Wilson 

A few days ago Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier sat opposite eight serious men - the brain trust of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) - and probed them for more than half hour. 

Each a businessman, successful, wealthy, and all in working for President Trump to clean up America's abhorrent abuse of taxpayer monies.

President Trump and Elon borrowing their (et al.) brains. 

Their disclosures as to fraud, waste, and abuse more angering than shocking. 

Critics of DOGE, and there's a plenty, obnoxiously loud.

And not only loud but disingenuous - lying to (the public) stoke and scare. 

They claim harm is being done to the innocent and the needy deprived and that government cannot be run like a for profit business. 

Incorrect. Nonsense. Stupid. 

Money is money. 

Mismanaging money - whether business, charity, government - is problematic.

Stealing money - from business, charity, government - criminal.  

Well, their gig (not only mismanagement but misdirection of money) is up.

Brains, spirt of freedom, and extraordinary courage drove the Founders of America. 

In reality, DOGE (though not by that name) was core to America's birth. 

So, brains, spirit of freedom, and extraordinary courage will preserve what the Founders realized.

Last month I read the factual account of Grandma Emma Gatewood's walk - at age 67 in the mid-1950s she thru walked the Appalachian Trail (AT) - Georgia to Maine. She did it more than once. And afterwards walked the Oregon Trail. 

Now reading the factual account of Annie Wilkins - about the same age as Grandma Gatewood and same timeframe - who rode her horse from Maine to California.

These women, with brains, spirit of freedom, and of extraordinary courage had nothing but time to think. They were not going to be denied. 

There's commonality between those two women and the eight men of DOGE - common sense and steely-eyed determination.  

I walk miles (have not and will not tackle the AT nor do I ride horses), daily, with plenty of time to think.

Thinking about the sickening disclosures the DOGE team has found to date and their practical solutions it occurred to me every civics class in primary and secondary education nationwide - middle school to college - ought be required to watch that interview; today's students tomorrow's businessmen and statesmen. 

I know it's too much to ask every taxpayer to watch but they should - objectively. 

In short what Elon, the messenger, is showcasing, with data, is that Congress, for way too long, has not been serving in the best interest of Americans. 

Ten weeks we are into a new President, a businessman, who means business - his business is Americans first. 

And so do the men and women carrying out the President's business mean business. 

When money, business, is not under control, nothing is under control. Nothing. 

We've more than 200 weeks to go. 

"Adapt or die." - Billy Beane