There are rumors (and now, before publication, it hit "The Street") floating around that "DOGE" has found what they're calling "magical printing computers" within multiple departments that are writing "checks" -- except they're not checks.  They're funds not drawn on anything -- that is, legally it amounts to counterfeiting.

Now this may be complete crap.

You better hope, if you own any sort of asset, that it is.

Why would some entity within the Government do this?

There are several possible reasons.

• To evade a debt ceiling.  If there's no check, there's no treasury issuance.
  
  
• To evade increasing the deficit. Again, no check, it never hits the MTS.

And so on.

Problem: Since funds today are largely digital there are no counterfeit serial numbers that can be traced and removed from circulation.  If this has happened the entire integrity of the US Government's financing has been destroyed; there is no way to know the full scope of that destruction because of course those funds are in circulation.

However there is a way to resolve this if in fact "unauthorized" emission of dollars has occurred.  Since the transmission of funds was counterfeit claw the transfer back from whoever it went to.  Banks really don't like eating hot checks and will do damn near anything to lay that off on the account holder, so let them do exactly that.  As fraud vitiates everything this is absolutely within the remit of Treasury to do and in fact, under their fiduciary responsibility it is legally required of them.  Oh by the way this obviously goes back years and there is no statute of limitations on fraud that runs until its discovered, so the clock starts now, not when it happened.  Yes, doing so will bankrupt a crap-ton of people -- so what?  They stole the funds and you never gain title to a stolen thing no matter how much time has passed.  Doing this will also end any possibility of the practice in the future because nobody will take a payment from the government for something in the future unless it has a memo line that ties back to Treasury, and they can verify it before they spend it.

The integrity of a monetary system relies on the premise that the issuer has control over the amount of currency in circulation.  The MTS is the means by which this is accounted for (and the DTS, if you want daily amounts.)  Corruption of this, if discovered and proved, has a very high probability of leading to an immediate crisis of confidence and collapse of all asset values domiciled in or operating under said place and system.

The rumors could be complete crap -- and they could also be simply mistakes in that the tieback is there.

But.... there's this, which strongly implies its not, and pre-dates that rumor (and then article):

But usaspending.gov is wrong on the biggest picture, RealClearInvestigations found. 

The total amount of spending across “all agencies,” as recorded at usaspending.gov, appears to be 50% higher than most experts interviewed for this article think it actually was.

Is it actually wrong?  From what I can tell the amount is an overstatement but it doesn't matter because the basic claim is correct.

You better hope that site is in fact wrong -- and that the MTS isn't what's wrong -- because if not your neighbor may soon try to eat you.

For real.

PS: Always remember that anything which appears to not be deterministic (e.g. "will there be a tornado, and if so, where and when?") in fact is.  Its just that you don't have the facts necessary to analyze it accurately.  This article was just forced off the ad-supported side, two years later, as it was declared "unreliable and harmful claims."  The entire reason I put this article over here is that this objection ought to be called "uncomfortable truths" because that's what they in fact are, exactly as are the examples in that article that is now, but not two years ago, considered "unsuitable" for advertising.

So this appears to be, by the way.

So Roberts claims we should not impeach judges over political differences.

Well, he's sort of right, except Trump was impeached twice (but not convicted either time) over exactly that, and in both cases the predicate of alleged misconduct was, as we now know, a manufactured political lie.

What was the punishment for this?  Nothing, of course.  And I remind you that impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one, as I repeatedly pointed out during both of them in the myriad podcasts I put out as my "daily grind" of the time.

However, impeachment is very clearly, from the record all the way back to the start of this Republic, legitimately invoked and used when judges (who are the most-commonly impeached group) engage in corrupt practices, defined generally as rank violations of the governing laws and rules of the Court over their behavior.

Bribery, official misconduct and similar all fall into that category.

So does failure to recuse when they, or their direct family members, are beneficiaries of one side or another of a case before them, as the rules of the courts they sit upon require them to recuse under that circumstance.

Now I have not looked at all of the injunctions issued by these judges in the current administration yet.  There's a lot of them.

But the most facially-outrageous and far-reaching injunctions and TROs, including those related to USAID and just recently the screamfest over deportation flights out of the country, I have looked into.  And in every case I've examined thus far I have found said violations and thus said "judge" was facially disqualified and required to recuse.

In those cases it was trivial, using nothing other than public information (e.g. IRS 990s) to find that the spouses and/or children, who are direct family members, are profiting directly from entities that are funded via one or the other's side of the case, and in every case I've looked into its been the moving party's interests that have buttered said family member's bread.

If Roberts doesn't want to stomp on clear, visible and obvious corruption then he's a part of it by his own willful and intentional acts and its time for the people to decide that the premise of this Republic has been irrevocably corrupted because we have allowed fraud as a business model to go on for so long without demanding the people doing it go to prison that there is no civil and polite way to reverse it anymore.

That's a ****ty deal but Roberts, personally is just as responsible for this as anyone else -- or do you not remember the decision he handed up with the PPACA (Obamacare) in which the Supremes found the law unconstitutional as it was a direct tax and thus prohibited by the Constitution and then they rewrote it from the bench to correct that infirmity, which they have no Constitutional capacity, per the Constitution itself, to do.

Well unlike so many of the people in this country I wasn't smoking weed the entire time, legal or not and thus I DO remember.

Roberts damn well better reconsider this as had better the rest of the Supremes.  And yes, I get it -- mathematics sucks sometimes, and this is one of them.  If you have, for example, a thing that has a million dollars of legitimate services provided and you allow 20% of that million to be added into it by fraud-as-a-business-model, you got a serious problem.

Why?

Because business must expand in revenue, profit and hopefully both, especially when its a public company or the shareholders get angry.  This in turn means the 20% grift becomes a compound function.

Got a calculator that does exponents?  You know, Y^^x? Yeah, do that over 5 and then 10 years.

Over five years cost expands to 249% of its original size and over 10 years the cost expands to 625% and that accounts only for the fraud, with nothing for actual inflation in the cost of said service or product.  In other words in just five years the actual thing you're delivering has its entire legitimate outcome plus a half again absorbed in said fraud and in another five the fraud exceeds the productive output of said thing by five times.

Incidentally the same grift exists in our Legislature and virtually every lawmaker is guilty of it.  Simply look at the involvement of family members of Congresspeople and how they make their money, never mind those who amass tens of millions of dollars after a half-dozen years with a $175,000 per year salary.  That of course is impossible through honest work.

If you want to know where the issue with medical care and college education has arisen from you need only look here, and that's not all of it.  So is the slush fund otherwise known as "USAID" and in the last four years the scams and grift around illegal immigration.

A prime example is found right here:

A partnership between AARP, the top interest group in the United States dedicated to the plight of seniors, is facing growing scrutiny over its partnership with UnitedHealthcare as the healthcare giant faces a growing number of controversies.

"AARP now makes over a billion dollars a year in corporate royalties, more than triple what they make in membership dues," American Commitment President Phil Kerpen told Fox News Digital. 

....

The reason is shameful. UnitedHealth kicks back 4.95 percent of premium income from AARP subscribers to AARP. 

Its everywhere, its the entire driver of our fiscal mess and if we don't stop ALL OF IT right now through judicial means, all of which incidentally is facially a felony as all of these schemes implicate multiple federal criminal statutes demanding hard prison time for EACH PERSON involved, including every single Executive, all that will be left is extrajudicial means and that will come when privation has permeated a sufficient percentage of the population.

If you want to know the best possible outcome if this is not stopped you need only look at what has been the case in Mexico for the last couple of decades where narco-terrorists have effectively seized 20% of the territory and corrupted the government.  Get on their wrong side and they execute you without a care in the world what anyone thinks about it and with an explicit wink from the government itself.

That's the best outcome if we don't stop this crap right now.

The worst is a dirty civil war where nobody is safe and getting your mail out of the box in the afternoon is a life-risking act.

For real.

Judges are starting to rule against Trump's cut-off of appropriated funds.

Note that there are multiple issues -- specifically two -- at play here:

• Fraud vitiates all things.  Spending against an expired program is fraudulent, as is diversion outside of the terms of the appropriation by Congress no matter how it is done.  So, for example, if you have an appropriation for "Aid to Uganda for food assistance" and it is turned into a DIE-fest or one to promote "Queerness" or whatever that is fraud and not only can that money be withheld there is an actual obligation to withhold it and, to the extent it was misused in that fashion claw it back punitively from the various agencies and NGOs where it was sent and criminally prosecute those who diverted it and profited from said diversion.
  
  
• However, after Nixon used impoundment to not spend appropriated funds that was removed from Presidential prerogative in 1974 by explicit law.  Is that act Constitutional?  Well it would certainly appear to be given that all spending bills must originate in the House per the Constitution so provided the spending occurs exactly as Congress directs, and in no other way, it would appear that there is no authority for the Executive to refuse.  But is there?  For example, can Congress appropriate $1 million for 1,000 hammers, with each "expected" to cost $1,000 -- and thus compel the Executive to use a vendor that charges that much if there is another vendor that will sell equivalent-quality hammers for $20?  This is a question that, thus far, appears to be one of first impression and thus if the Executive does that I'd argue forcing them to overpay is equivalent to demanding forced theft from the taxpayer and we're back to fraud which, again, vitiates all things.

What this means, however, is that Congress (all 535 of them) and all their family members, especially considering how many of them have "side gigs" collecting these funds through NGO channels which explicitly violate the letter of the appropriation and do so with full knowledge and intent need to be held to account, both from a criminal perspective when family members are involved under the first bullet point and if the overspending does not immediately stop as pertains to the deficit then when civilization comes apart they must ALL be eaten FIRST.

To the first point, however, elements in our current economic structure like PBMs which explicitly lie are not shielded by any measure of statute; you cannot legislate the legality of fraud and a misrepresentation for the purpose of profit to the detriment of someone else is the definition of fraud.

Further, refusal to comply with the document demands whether via subpoena or otherwise in oversight processes is obstruction of justice and if the intent (and ultimate discovery) is that of obscuring fraud, and I remind you that obstruction of justice is a serious criminal felony for each and every person involved there is no official immunity either.  Indeed it is in the context of government officials where obstruction of justice is most-often both practiced and discovered.

So to the extent that DOGE (or anyone else), for example, can discover that a PBM is claiming that an $1,800 per month price for a drug is a "good deal" because the "actual retail price" is $2,000, when in fact people can and do buy the same drug for $60 a month in cash, said PBM is committing criminal fraud, attempting to hide behind the CMS rules that "the PBM's determination as to pricing is per-se valid" does not shield them, payment by CMS to such an entity is in fact fraudulent and thus irrespective of appropriated funds not only can be blocked it can and must be clawed back to the limit of the Statute of Limitations and every person and entity must be prosecuted for that act.

Likewise, if DOGE determines that $1,000 toilet seats are in fact no different than $50 ones sold at Home Depot to anyone who walks in the door, effectively creating fraud as a business model by dint of Congressional Appropriation I'd argue that appropriation is in fact for $50 seats and the additional funds are not lawfully appropriated and thus not only can be refused to be spent but must be refused and the vendor selling the $1,000 seats at 10,000% mark-up along with all who enabled that scam within the Government must be prosecuted and the funds expended thus far clawed back.

There are many such examples already known -- but in the broad sense the 50% increase in federal budget size since 2019 is entirely on Congress and if they won't cut that **** out right ****ing now, including Speaker Johnson, then I don't give a **** if any of them or any of their family members has horrible things happen to them and in fact will offer toasts if that occurs because they are deliberately destroying the United States and its capacity to continue as a nation for their own, and their friend's personal profit.

The debt problem originated in Congress, it resides there, and it remains there however to that point the President (Trump) has both the capacity and duty to issue a VETO on an attempt to pass another CR that maintains this level of spending but since Congress did and he didn't then **** him also as that act proves Trump is a fraud just as are all the members of Congress.

Oh, this is not good at all if you are thinking there has been a focus change in deficit spending.

We are not asking you to slash Medicaid, only turn back the clock and reverse its explosive expansion in the last few years that has put it on an unsustainable course.  

In the last five years, federal Medicaid spending has skyrocketed from $409 billion in 2019 to $618 billion in 2024, a 51% increase. Despite being 60 years old, a third of Medicaid’s growth has occurred in those same five years. And in the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Medicaid will cost more than $1 trillion annually, rivaling the size of Saudi Arabia’s current economy. 

The article goes on to talk about the Clinton changes in which you had to, if able-bodied, be working or your eligibility didn't exist -- and Obamacare, particularly in Medicaid expansion states, turned the program into a "gibs-me-dat" thing.

But the issue isn't "insurance" when you have a problem of this sort: It's cost, and you cannot address cost when you have a cartel operating in a given field.

Said cartel behavior is unlawful and has been for over 100 years; so says 15 USC Chapter 1 and two Supreme Court decisions that indeed it applies (Royal Drug and Maricopa County), both of which are now more than forty years old and were not overridden by Obamacare or any other legislation since.

Problem: Address this, which is responsible for five times escalation in cost, and that all comes out which means 15% of the economy disappears!

Yes, it will be extremely disruptive if that comes out.

But it has to come out or you can't solve the problem with spiraling debt and debt service which will destroy the economy and all asset prices.

That is the problem and I am in no way encouraged that the Trump Administration or Congress has any intent to take it on and solve it and until that happens there is no way to have any sort of sustainable economic base which means all you have left in all asset markets is bubbles.

All bubbles can randomly run into a pin -- without warning.

Its one study but this, in immune-competent people without material hemorrhage risk looks like something worth doing as an adjunct to cancer treatment as it has quite-low risk provided the other things you're doing don't interfere with clotting.

In short it appears that ordinary aspirin, in modest doses, suppresses metastasis of existing cancer.  The hazard ratio they found is rather impressive -- it is not a 100% response by any means, but since spread of a primary tumor is an "aw ****" sort of thing while focused further investigation certainly is in order this is an extremely inexpensive and, provided there are no hemorrhagic concerns, looks like a good "bang for the buck on risk" addition with nearly zero cost.

Note that inhibition of COX-2 did not result in benefit; thus acetaminophen (Tylenol) would not be expected to work as that blocks COX-2 and it is unknown if ibuprofen will help (it blocks both non-selectively.)

Aspirin can be extremely dangerous if you have a condition, or are using other drugs, that potentiate bleeding -- including the possibility of causing hemorrhagic strokes, which are usually fatal, so it is very important, especially if you're using other medications (and you probably will be if you have cancer!) to know if there is an interaction risk or you have a hemorrhage risk already, and in addition if your immune system is compromised whether it would be beneficial is questionable.  Thus this isn't really a "do it yourself" sort of thing, but it is a very interesting study with an unexpected finding.

Oh, and its not the first one either -- so why isn't this part of the standard recommendations?

You know damn well what the answer is -- at 2 cents a pill nobody can make any money on it.