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Trump promises new era of government efficiency with DOGE

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Group files suit over DOGE secrecy on Trump’s first day

President Donald Trump promised Americans that their federal government would operate more efficiently with the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency.

“My administration will establish the brand new Department of Government Efficiency,” the 47th president said to applause from Republicans.

Trump’s remarks on DOGE came the same day as a nonprofit group joined a union to file suit over the outside agency, alleging its secret meetings violate federal law.

The complaint, filed by Public Citizen and the American Federation of Government Employees, alleges DOGE violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act because “members do not have a fair balance of viewpoints, meetings are held in secret and without public notice and records and work product are not available to the public.”

“AFGE will not stand idly by as a secretive group of ultra-wealthy individuals with major conflicts of interest attempt to deregulate themselves and give their own companies sweetheart government contracts while firing civil servants and dismantling the institutions designed to serve the American people,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “This fight is about fairness, accountability, and the integrity of our government.”

Trump spoke about DOGE during his inauguration after making bold promises for the department after winning the 2024 election.

Trump picked Tesla CEO Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to lead DOGE. Trump said the new group will pave the way for his administration to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulation, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

Both Musk and Ramaswamy attended Trump’s inauguration Monday. The two men previously outlined their plans for DOGE, which includes reducing regulations that would lead to mass layoffs of federal employees.

“A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in November. “DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions.”

AFGE, which represents more than 800,000 workers in nearly every federal agency, had previously denounced DOGE. Kelley said it will hollow out the federal government and its workforce.

“By their very nature, cuts of this size also would require slashing spending on our military, homeland security, federal law enforcement, and virtually every aspect of our government operations,” he said. “This kind of financial pressure would lead to painful, widespread reductions in services that will affect Americans from every walk of life.”

Trump has promised to cut “hundreds of billions” in federal spending in 2025 through the reconciliation process. DOGE co-leader Musk initially suggested DOGE could cut $2 trillion in spending. Musk more recently said the group will aim for $2 trillion, but likely come up with half that amount.

Congress controls the purse strings for discretionary spending, which totaled about $1.7 trillion in 2023. Congress generally allocates about half of its discretionary spending to the U.S. Department of Defense.

“The number of federal employees to cut should be at least proportionate to the number of federal regulations that are nullified: Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote. “Employees whose positions are eliminated deserve to be treated with respect, and DOGE’s goal is to help support their transition into the private sector. The president can use existing laws to give them incentives for early retirement and to make voluntary severance payments to facilitate a graceful exit.”

Congress has run a deficit every year since 2001. In the past 50 years, the federal government has ended with a fiscal year-end budget surplus four times, most recently in 2001.

Last week, the federal government reported net costs of $7.4 trillion in fiscal year 2024, but it couldn’t fully account for its spending. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is Congress’s research arm, said that the federal government must address “serious deficiencies” in federal financial management and correct course on its “unsustainable” long-term fiscal path.

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Exposing Global Affairs Canada’s crazy spending spree

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Association

By Franco Terrazzano

$1,700 on Lesbian Pirates! musical $3,900 for a “frank discussion” of “how to do a proper land acknowledgment” Millions on vacant land in Africa and properties in Afghanistan we abandoned to the Taliban $7,500 to promote DEI at music festival in Estonia $12,000 so seniors in other countries could talk about their sex lives $7.2 million for “gender-responsive systems approach to universal healthcare in the Philippines” $13,000 for an Oscars party in LA $8,800 for a show called “whose jizz is this” And so much more…

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Addictions

Calls for Public Inquiry Into BC Health Ministry Opioid Dealing Corruption

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Sam Cooper

The leaked audit shows from 2022 to 2024, a staggering 22,418,000 doses of opioids were prescribed by doctors and pharmacists to approximately 5,000 clients in B.C., including fentanyl patches.

A confidential investigation by British Columbia’s Ministry of Health, Financial Operations and Audit Branch has uncovered explosive allegations of fraud, abuse, and organized crime infiltration within PharmaCare’s prescribed opioid alternatives program. Internal audit findings, obtained by The Bureau, suggest that millions of taxpayer dollars are being diverted into illicit drug trafficking networks rather than serving harm reduction efforts.

The leaked documents include photographs from vehicle searches that show collections of fentanyl patches and Dilaudid (hydromorphone) apparently packaged for resale after being stolen from the taxpayer-funded “safer supply” program. This program expanded dramatically following a federal law change implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in 2020, which broadened circumstances in which pharmacy staff could dispense opioids, according to the document’s evidence.

“Prior to March 17, 2020, only pharmacists in BC were permitted to deliver [addiction therapy treatment] drugs,” the audit says.

B.C.’s safer supply program was launched in March 2020 as a response to the opioid overdose crisis, declared in 2016. It allows people with opioid-use disorder to receive prescribed drugs to be used on-site or taken away for later use.

The Special Investigations Unit and PharmaCare Audit Intelligence team identified a disturbing link between doctors, pharmacists, assisted living residences, and organized crime, where prescription opioids meant to replace illicit drugs are instead being diverted, sold, and trafficked at scale.

“A significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients,” the document states.

It suggests that financial incentives have created a business model for organized crime, asserting that “prescribed alternatives (safe supply opioids) are trafficked provincially, nationally, and internationally,” and that “proceeds of fraud” are being used to pay incentives to doctors, pharmacists, and intermediaries.

BC Conservative critic Elenore Sturko, a former RCMP officer, began raising concerns about the program two years ago after hearing anecdotes about prescribed opioids being trafficked. She asserts that the program is a failure in public policy and insists that Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry be dismissed for having “denied and downplayed” problems as they emerged. Sturko also argues that B.C. must change its drug policy in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance linking the trafficking of fentanyl and other opioids to potential trade sanctions against Canada.

The document shows that PharmaCare’s dispensing fee loophole has incentivized pharmacies to maximize billings per patient, with some locations charging up to $11,000 per patient per year—compared to just $120 in normal cases.

Perhaps most alarming is the deep infiltration of B.C.’s safer supply program by criminal networks. The Ministry of Health report lists “Gang Members/Organized Crime” as key players in the prescription drug pipeline, which includes “Doctors, pharmacies, and assisted living residences.”

This revelation confirms long-standing fears that B.C.’s “safe supply” policy—originally designed to prevent deaths from contaminated street drugs—is instead sometimes supplying criminal organizations with pharmaceutical-grade opioids.

The leaked audit shows from 2022 to 2024, a staggering 22,418,000 doses of opioids were prescribed by doctors and pharmacists to approximately 5,000 clients in B.C., including fentanyl patches.

Beyond organized crime’s direct involvement, pharmacies themselves have exploited regulatory gaps to generate massive profits from PharmaCare’s policies:

  • Pharmacies offer kickbacks to doctors, housing staff, and medical professionals to steer patients toward specific locations.
  • Financial incentives fuel fraud, with multiple investigations identifying 60+ pharmacies offering incentives to clients.
  • Non-health professionals, including housing staff, are witnessing OAT (opioid agonist treatment) dosing, violating patient safety protocols.

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