The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Comments

1. Pogo says

   February 25, 2025 at 9:02 am

   @If you thought you saw Sidney Catts alive last night

   …alive as you and me — you did:

   As stated
   https://www.google.com/search?q=League+of+the+South

   Furthermore
   https://www.google.com/search?q=members+of+league+of+the+south

   Florida
   noun
   the southern most district of Alabama, and Georgia — two states in trumpanistan

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2. Laurel says

   February 25, 2025 at 10:16 am

   Trump and Musk are the foxes guarding the hen house. To them, this is a joke and spoils to scoop up, while the loyal pick-pocketed cheer on.

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3. Jackson says

   February 25, 2025 at 12:31 pm

   Only a matter of time before this Country collapse.

   Twenty-one United States Digital Service technology staffers just resigned today in what is being seen as a mass protest resignation against the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), according to a federal government employee with knowledge of the resignations.

   These are, according to this source, “Your most skilled people – pretty much handling the top priorities – they all just resigned. Engineers, designers, data scientists, project managers, leading work on critical projects across the government..”

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4. Ray W, says

   February 25, 2025 at 4:23 pm

   Just watched a Leno segment on Scout’s new SUV and truck models. VW, which bought the rights to International Harvester a while ago, is resurrecting the Scout line of vehicles.

   Scout intends to begin selling the new models in the 2027 model year. It offered test mules of both models to Leno; he test drove one of them.

   The all-electric version of each model has a large nickel-magnesium-cobalt (LMC) battery pack that offers a 350-mile range.

   The extended-range electric model (EREV) of each model uses a smaller and lighter lithium-ferrous-phosphate (LFP) battery pack that offers 150 miles of range, at which point a small four-cylinder ICE that VW already produces starts up to generate electricity. Total range with a 15-gallon tank for the off-road EREV vehicles is 500 miles.

   Scout is in the process of building a $2 billion factory in South Carolina, with access to a deep-water port for export purposes.

   The majority of customers who have pre-ordered the vehicles are choosing the EREV version over the BEV version.

   Both vehicles will accelerate from 0-60 in less than 3.5 seconds. The truck version, named Terra, will tow up to 10,000 lbs., with a load rating of 2000 lbs. The SUV version, named Traveler, will tow and carry slightly less.

   Make of this what you will.

5. Chudrick Westphalen says

   February 25, 2025 at 5:35 pm

   Reaction to the comic:

   Yes.

   1

6. Ed P says

   February 25, 2025 at 5:41 pm

   Jackson,
   You are not telling the whole story. These 21 were 100% remote employees who were originally hired for the Affordable Health Care project.Remember how well that web site performed when started?
   Secondly, when any employee decides they are the boss, their time is over. They stated that they were in essence blocking the President’s edicts. Good riddance. They quit, we need to fight any type of unemployment compensations.
   What rational person protests against cost savings, efficiency and disposable of waste?
   Do you want your tax dollars wasted? Is this your mantra. “Hooray, we want less for more….”
   DOGE is decades over due.
   The average American believes our government needs an over haul, not a wing nut tightened.
   Did you hear Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, today?

   1

7. Ray W, says

   February 25, 2025 at 6:22 pm

   Pittsburgh-based Alcoa’s CEO, Bill Oplinger, spoke today at BMO Global Metals & Mining Conference.

   He predicted that Trump’s tariff on aluminum would cost Americans 100,000 jobs. He added that “We view (tariffs) as bad for the U.S.”

   Make of this what you will.

   Me?

   I am a curious student. I don’t know what is going to happen. But I consider the words of those whose livelihood depends on long-term stability in their industry. Tariffs often bring retaliatory tariffs. He is worried.

   5

8. Skibum says

   February 25, 2025 at 6:43 pm

   While it is true that there are ways to achieve more efficiency and cut some waste in public agencies, the same holds true for private businesses and I would argue that there is even more potential for abuse in large private corporations, you know, like the ones Musk runs, when there is NO oversight, no transparency, no ability for the public to hold him or his companies accountable for the hoards of public monies that he and his companies rake in from government grants and loans. The oversight process that we have… scratch that, HAD, for federal agencies were the Inspector Generals within each agency who’s jobs were to detect waste and abuse, but those positions were the very first ones eliminated by drumph and his puppet Musk, which allows the felon-in-chief to claim plausible deniability and put all of the blame on Musk if and when everything goes wrong because we have all learned long ago that drumph loves to take credit for things even when he had nothing to do with them, but NEVER takes the blame even when things go very, very wrong right under his nose, and instead looks around to see who he can put the blame on instead so in his own little mind he can tell himself he is never at fault for anything. And as this cartoon so apply suggests, one doesn’t get rid of 10% waste and inefficiency by chopping the head off of the person, or federal agency!!! But, of course, weeding out any waste and inefficiency was NEVER the intended purpose in the first place, and only the mentally challenged would believe such a farce when the real goal was to make themselves even more powerful while summarily eliminating those agencies and programs that stood in their way of making more money or who’s jobs were to investigate them and tell the American people what drumph and Musk were really up to! Guess what… both of these idiots may be fooling the fools who are the GOP members in Congress, but they are NOT fooling us!

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9. Sherry says

   February 25, 2025 at 9:02 pm

   elon musk is an outrageously horrific lier and “Rabble Rouser”! His lies and made up conspiracy theories are ludicrous and extremely dangerous! Take a good read: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/23/politics/government-spending-elon-musk-doge

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10. Ed P says

    February 26, 2025 at 6:57 am

    Skibum,
    From experience, Profit weeds out inefficiencies in the private sector. Survival weeds out inefficiencies in the private sector. Innovations weed out inefficiencies in the private sectors.
    Shareholders and Boards of Directors are critical to over sight.

    In the private sector each and every employee has but 2 mandates. Make the firm money or save the firm money. If not, you are not needed.
    That’s the difference.

11. Ed P says

    February 26, 2025 at 8:24 am

    Do not over look that multiple administrations fired/ replaced multiple inspector generals.
    Also, if the Inspector Generals been effectively reducing the waste, fraud and abuse then we probably would be witnessing a failure of DOGE.
    Don’t over look Iron Mountain. How could that be missed?
    Total federal employee head count grew nearly 5 % under the Biden administration.
    A 6% reduction or about 180,000 person reduction would only put the workforce back to “normal” levels. Many of these terminated people will return to the private sector.
    Will 2.7-2.8 million federal employees still be necessary if methodologies and computer systems are updated? Doubt it.
    Also, are we to believe that the 64% of employees who were authorized to work in a hybrid fashion from home and office would ever be as effective if it was 5 days in the office? Some 1-5 days home depending on their duties and supervisors.
    If efficiency was anywhere near the same as reporting to an office, then private businesses should never rent cavernous facilities. Would they waste the profit on useless office rent?

    1

12. Ray W, says

    February 26, 2025 at 9:02 am

    Hello Ed P.

    All private sector employees have three mandates: 1. Help make the business money. 2. Help save the business money. 3. Do not lie on behalf of the business. If you lie on behalf of the business, you are not needed, because in time no one will trust the business.

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13. Laurel says

    February 26, 2025 at 9:59 am

    Well, that’s the whole thing. They don’t want skilled people, or intelligent people. Too hard to control. They want obedient, loyal, puppies. Then they can bring in “Big Balls” to play with our data, and lives, while the oligarchs can scoop up the spoils.

    3

14. Laurel says

    February 26, 2025 at 10:33 am

    Trump is destabilizing the country, if not the world.

    If I was a farmer, should I buy that new tractor for my fields? Will that John Deere tractor, I’ve trusted all my life, from Canada be unaffordable? Will my harvest be exported? Will there be drought? Should I try a different harvest, or will that matter? Will I get a loan? How would tariffs affect me? What should I do?

    If I’m a car manufacturer, will I get the parts I need? Should I invest in EVs or will my EVs be denied by civilian Musk? Will my cars be able to be exported? Will Americans be able to afford my cars? Will Americans buy used cars, or keep their cars do to the price of imported parts? How will tariffs affect me? What should I do?

    If I’m a doctor, a nurse, a health care provider, should I do as I learned in med school, or will that information be outlawed by a department lead by a non-professional who has personal whims? Will I be giving my patients the best, latest health care or will the science be de-funded or manipulated? Will I have to worry about my care decisions aligning with someone who doesn’t have the training? Will I need to worry about following laws that do not align with what I was taught? Will my patients be insured? How will these varying laws affect me? What should I do?

    If I’m a military soldier, should I worry about turning against my own fellow citizens? Will I get the benefits promised to me? How will these government shake up affect me? What should I do?

    If I’m a teacher, should I try to teach at public schools? Should I try private schools? Will I get the resources I need for my classes? Will I be able to teach what has been the accepted curriculum, or will I be forced to teach the state agenda? Will my school be accredited? How will the lack of government consistency affect me? What should I do?

    As a business person, how should I react to the latest “cut” or “trade war” or possible recession? What should I invest in, when the market is all over the place? How should I run my business? What should I do?

    You know I could go on and on, because these are some of the questions already being asked by American citizens. There are no guarantees in any career we are in, but there is an acknowledged, and accepted stability. Trump is destroying that, for us as individuals, and as a country.

    3

15. Laurel says

    February 26, 2025 at 10:56 am

    Government is not meant to be profit making. It is true that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector, but private industries do often fail. Trump has failed several (how do you f**k up vodka?). CEOs with golden parachutes are not efficient. They are way overpaid, and that over-payment is passed on to the consumers. Accountability is practically nonexistent. The private sector answers to the investors, who only care about profit, whereas the public sector has to answer to its citizens (and here, in Florida, is supposed to adhere to the Sunshine Law for transparency).

    Having worked in both the private and public sectors, and believe me, there is much I could complain about in the public sector, but the difference there is, the public sector is much more stable, whereas the private sector is not. I would prefer stability in government, which the current administration is disrupting…like f**king up vodka.

    4

16. Sherry says

    February 26, 2025 at 11:36 am

    Yes. . . for those without any personal ethics or integrity, it really is all about the MONEY, and absolutely NOTHING else!

    To Hell with Humanity!
    To Hell with our Constitution!
    To Hell with our democracy!
    To Hell with the Environment humans require to exist on this planet!
    To Hell with Jobs!
    To Hell with Education!
    To Hell with Laws!
    To Hell with Justice!
    To Hell with the 10 Commandments!

    Certainly to Hell with Honesty!
    Certainly to Hell with Empathy and Compassion!
    Certainly to Hell with Equality!
    Certainly to Hell with “Doing the Right Thing”!

    Our country is quickly dying because there are so many voters who have “sold their very souls”!

    7

17. BillC says

    February 26, 2025 at 12:33 pm

    @Ed P “Make the firm money or save the firm money. If not, you are not needed.” That’s the definition of a feudal vassal not an employee.

    4

18. Sherry says

    February 26, 2025 at 2:00 pm

    The “HUGE FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY” here is THIS:

    Governments should NEVER be run like businesses! This cannot be stated enough, so again, Governments should NEVER be run like businesses!

    “Business is essential—in its place. So is government, in its place.” The problem is that these two institutions serve fundamentally different purposes. “The place of business is in the competitive marketplace, to supply us with goods and services that we can afford as “INDIVIDUALS”.

    The place of government, aside from protecting us from threats, is a NON PROFIT “cost sharing” enterprise to help provide the “essential” goods and services that we CANNOT AFFORD as INDIVIDUALS. Taxes are collected in order to share the costs of goods and services like:

    * Education
    * Safe Food and Drinking Water
    * Roads and Bridges
    * Police and Fire Departments
    * The judicial System
    * Healthcare
    * Military
    * Airline Safety
    * Building Codes
    * Power Grids
    * Internet/Phone/TV Services

    The governmental “cost sharing” is involved in the vast majority of each and everything we consume and utilize on a daily basis! Our government was NOT created to “Make a PROFIT”!!!! It was created to “SERVE and PROTECT” the “People”!!!!!!!!!

    4

19. Ed P says

    February 26, 2025 at 2:24 pm

    Bill C,
    I can only assume you never had fiduciary responsibilities for a public entity or a successful private business.
    As cold as it sounds, there isn’t any reason for either entity to employ even 1 unnecessary employee or any employee not saving or making money that entity money.
    Welcome to reality Sherry.

20. Sherry says

    February 26, 2025 at 2:28 pm

    Apparently there are others who should be in that musk guillotine . . . like those with “Advanced Degrees”! This from the Pew Research Center:

    The most highly educated federal agency, among those with at least 1,000 employees, isn’t NASA or the National Science Foundation, but the U.S. Agency for International Development. Two-thirds of its 4,675 workers hold a master’s degree, doctorate or other advanced degree.

    trump/musk commands = FIRE Those Who Are Educated! Replace them with “Unvetted/Inexperienced” Trump Maga Loyalist!

    5

21. Skibum says

    February 26, 2025 at 5:17 pm

    Ed P, if what you say is in fact true, then the person who is now in our country’s WH is the wrong person for the job, and the billionaire who has never worked in the public sector, has zero knowledge about or interest in finding out what our federal employees do every day to help all of us is exactly the wrong guy to be put in a position to somehow decide if public sector jobs are worthwhile or not! But of course, the stated intent of these two con men was never to make government more efficient or detect waste in the first place… it is all just another distraction on their part. Who in their right mind would select for this kind of job the one man who has so many REAL conflicts of interest with a whole host of federal agencies, putting him in charge of making decisions on which federal agencies and employees are going to stay and which ones need to go??? It is a con job pure and simple, so the grifter in chief and his tag along billionaire techie can accumulate more wealth while eliminating all of the oversight, all of the investigators that look into fraud and collusion, and all of the ethical federal law enforcers, so they hope there is no ethical and honest individuals left that will look them in the eye and try to stop their grift and stealing from right under our noses!

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22. BillC says

    February 26, 2025 at 8:21 pm

    @Ed P Elon Musk blows you a kiss.

    2

23. Ed P says

    February 26, 2025 at 9:18 pm

    Sherry,
    We have been exposed to what happens when a government is not run like a business.
    37 trillion in the hole, 1 trillion interest annually, waste, fraud and abuse abound.
    I suspect that you also believe government employees are like school teachers and should not have to held to performance standards and actual results.

    Every public sector employees salary is a direct expense to the taxpayers and I will never believe that they should not be saving tax payers in every endeavor they perform.

    FL commenters bemoan and complain over every dollar (even a 1/2 % sales tax) of additional cost that Palm Coast or Flagler County budgets or spends. How in the world do you not care about billions and billions of federal dollars. They are all our dollars.

    Nonsensical logic.

24. Ed P says

    February 26, 2025 at 10:28 pm

    Skibum,
    Do you really believe that Trump or Musk are in it for the money? Really? Honestly?Both men could have pretty good lives. They don’t really need the bullshit.
    Ask yourself why they accept people generating conspiracy theories about grift, cons, conflict of interest, ect. Neither take a pay check. They are doers who get business done.
    Why is it so far fetched that people who hold a different ideology and methodology than you, might actually love our country and be Patriots?

    The lefts’ chronic negative narrative is impossible to be always right. I hear nothing but complaints and never a workable solution that would be better. Reveal a better plan.

    Trump and Musk believe they are the right men for our times. Neither cares about opinions, has nothing to gain except a legacy. Could be good, could be bad. Both are willing to put their names and life’s work on the line, believing their actions will prove good. It’s a huge risk for both men. They actually have a lot to lose. They have skin in the game.

    You have to do better then name calling, spouting baseless hyperbole or just plain hate speech to beat these two guys, because they are a pair that beats 3 off a kind all day, everyday.

    When your house is burning down, do you really care about the fire fighters’ character?
    The referendum on character was passed, people didn’t care, they elected Trump President of the United States. Give it up, it rings silent.

    And finally, the founding fathers never ever meant for our country to be run by political hacks. They envisioned a cross section of people contributing for a term or 2 and going back home to their respective careers. Politicians highjacked and bastardized the the system. That’s exactly what created the bureaucracy today. Life long politicians who never worked outside of politics, hired cronies and only worry about fund raising to get re-elected. Biden was the poster boy.

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25. Sherry says

    February 27, 2025 at 1:48 pm

    More ways GREED . . . the GREED for even more POWER and Billions . . . is driving musk and making each one of us LESS SAFE when flying!

    Elon Musk said Thursday that Verizon’s efforts to provide a critically needed upgrade to the FAA’s air traffic control system is failing. And he said that it is important that Starlink, a unit of his SpaceX satellite and rocket company, take over.

    “The Verizon communication system to air traffic control is breaking down very rapidly,” he said in a post on his social media platform X. “The FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk.”

    “The situation is extremely dire,” Musk added.

    Of course having absolutely nothing to do with the “FIRED FAA” workers:

    The union said Monday it believed just under 300 FAA workers it represents were fired, including maintenance mechanics, aeronautical information specialists, aviation safety assistants and management and program assistants. “These are positions that are vital to supporting public safety,” a union spokeswoman said.

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26. Sherry says

    February 27, 2025 at 6:40 pm

    Does ANYONE in their right minds want Musk’s company to control our air traffic control system? Do you not see this egregious “Power Grab”? Do you not see “Oligark Musk” manipulating our government to further enrich himself?

    There are none so blind as those who “Refuse” to see!

    2