[blog](blog): 2025-01-09 blogs (#640)

* [blog](blog): 2025-01-09 blogs

Signed-off-by: Ralph Hightower <32745442+RalphHightower@users.noreply.github.com>

* [improve](blog): add note of Trump withdrawal from WHO

Signed-off-by: Ralph Hightower <32745442+RalphHightower@users.noreply.github.com>

---------

Signed-off-by: Ralph Hightower <32745442+RalphHightower@users.noreply.github.com>

_posts/2025/01/2025-01-09-DOGEBecomesDODGE.md

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+---
+layout: post
+tags: [Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), bait-and-switch, broken promises, politics]
+categories: [Donald Trump]
+date: 2025-01-09 2:41 PM
+excerpt: "Musk's boast that he could easily find the budgetary savings was never realistic. Now he's being more modest."
+#image: 'BASEURL/assets/blog/img/.png'
+#description:
+#permalink:
+title: "Typical Trump Bait and Switch Tactic, Elon MuskSays Unlikely to Save $2 Trillion. DOGE Has Become DODGE."
+---
+
+
+## [Elon Musk Walks Back Vow To Find $2 Trillion In Wasteful Spending / HuffPost Latest News](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-doge-2-trillion_n_677fc53ce4b07fd941897923)
+
+*Musk's boast that he could easily find the budgetary savings was never realistic. Now he's being more modest.*
+
+By Arthur Delaney. Jan 9, 2025, 09:16 AM EST
+
+“We’ll try for 2 trillion. I think that’s like the best-case outcome, but I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one. In terms of saving money in the government, well, as you, as you know, it’s a very target-rich environment for saving money. It’s like being in a room full of targets, like you can close your eyes and you can’t miss.” – Musk
+
+Trump backpedaled, but only after he won the election, on lowering the price of eggs, bacon, and groceries, saying, "Gosh. Who knew that lowering groceries would be so hard." It’s a notable retrenchment from Musk’s prior position. On the campaign trail in October, Musk said he could find “at least \$2 trillion” to cut from the federal government’s annual budget of more than $6 trillion.
+
+### Untouchables
+
+| Spending | Promises |
+|---|---|
+| Social Security | Trump |
+| Medicare | Trump |
+| Defense | Trumpers[^51] |
+
+[^51]: @RalphHightower: It used to be the Republican Party, but it died when it picked an unqualified, unfit person as their presidential candidate. 
+
+Trump and Trumpers have nevertheless embraced Musk as a budget visionary, with Trump naming him to a nongovernment advisory panel called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Republicans then jumped on the DOGE bandwagon without realizing the name is a joke based on an internet meme about a Shiba Inu dog.
+
+It’s hard to see how Musk’s budget-slashing vision, which is supposed to close the gap between taxes and spending, will fit with Trumper plans to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, potentially at a cost of $5 trillion over a decade, with trillions more in additional tax cuts Trump promised on the campaign trail.
+
+Still, Musk repeated part of his prior boast that cutting federal spending is actually very easy.

_posts/2025/01/2025-01-09-SameOldNewPrezSameOldNewPandemic.md

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+---
+layout: post
+tags: [pandemic, coronavirus, China, World Health Organization (WHO), politics]
+categories: [Donald Trump]
+date: 2025-01-09 3:10 PM
+excerpt: "“It does cause a problem, and it is quite likely, as China is seeing a lot of it, that with all the global travel that we see, particularly at this time of year, it may be taken to other parts of the world.” – Sanjaya Senanayake, infectious disease specialist at the Australian National University’s School of Medicine and Psychology"
+#image: 'BASEURL/assets/blog/img/.png'
+#description:
+#permalink:
+title: "Same, Old, New President. Same Old, New Pandemic."
+---
+
+
+## [China: New virus outbreak could spread globally](https://www.tagtik.co.uk/en/news/society/china-new-virus-outbreak-could-spread-globally.html)
+
+An expert has warned that the new virus currently spreading in [China](https://www.gov.cn/) could reach "other parts of the world."
+
+The human metapneumovirus (HMPV), which has seen a recent surge in cases across [China](https://www.gov.cn/), has prompted the country’s Centers for Disease Control to call for additional measures to curb its spread.
+
+This respiratory illness, which shares symptoms with the flu, has the potential to cause a global pandemic similar to the coronavirus.
+
+Sanjaya Senanayake, an infectious disease specialist at the Australian National University’s School of Medicine and Psychology, cautioned that the virus could spread to other regions.
+
+He told express.co.uk: "It does cause a problem, and it is quite likely, as [China](https://www.gov.cn/) is seeing a lot of it, that with all the global travel that we see, particularly at this time of year, it may be taken to other parts of the world."
+
+@RalphHightower: Trump has also vowed to pull out from the World Health Organization (WHO), which means that the United States won't receive notifications of disease outbreaks in other parts of the world. 
+