Engorgeous George

Who has Constitutional authority to conduct foriegn relations and to conclude treatises?

I had collateral duties to my main duties as a Prosecutor. Amoung them were advising on open records matters, and for a two year operiod I had to re-write and update a purchasing code so I am fairly familiar with governmental contracting. To answer your question, yes, sophisticated bidders make certain they are aware of their competitors past bids. We routinely got demands for details on past bids. Actually we routinely got demands for currently submited bids but obviously we did not disclose those details as there are open records exceptions for extant bids up until the bid closure deadline. I occassionally would take calls from new businesses, particularly Minority and Women owned ones who would get referred to me by our legislators who knew me. They would want to know how they could bid on government contracts. (Dirty little secret here. Many folks have heard horror stories about such bids, and for major projects the bids can requirte hundreds of documents to support the bid, but there are many lucrative contracts with little or no competition and so bidders on those contracts do not bid with a sharp pencil. They make great profit. They are easily underbid and the contracts are still profitable. It just takes a bit of effort to learn the system. It is not really all that complex.) I would provide them with some standard treatises I had drafted for new or inexperienced bidders, and I would then encourage them to do open record demands for the last round of bidding on any contract to go to school on those bids. I also cautioned them to follow the bid requirements to a tee. Many wanted to change the parameters just slightly as they saw better ways of providing a good or service and were trying to help us save money. They would bid not on the current contract, but by changing the terms actually be proposing a different contract. That meant their bid was not acceptable as properly submitted. Purchasing Departments do not like to be told during the bid period there is a better way to do a contract. They want to be told that prior to then, in the Request for Proposal term prior to the Requests for Bids term.

Once sealed bids are opened and awarded the bids are subject to FOIA demands. All smart contractors go to school on the last round of bids. All of them.

This man knows things.

I am surprised this never became prevalent in figure skating.

Jesuit education?

There are no reports, just partisan speculation to try to drum up opposition. Still, I support auditing the auditors. The computer systems i had passing familiarity with had auditing trails automatically archived whenever anybody accessed the systems. It was easily possible to find out what information they were accessing, for how long, and whether or not they made downloads. (Now there was no way, to my knowledge, of knowing whether screen shots were taken instead of downloads atempted. for that one would want to prohibit accessing the system while in possession of such equipment) I encourage the Congressional Oversight Committee and any other relevant Committees to obtain such audit trails and to thoroughly examine them. Only if they find any irregularities do I then support subpooening Musk to answer questions. I suspect there will not be such irregularities, yet I know that some folks cannot resist exceeding their authority and abusing their access and working around and exceeding their access so I fully support and strongly encourage auditing these Doge auditors.

Reminds me of the Native American psychiatrist who, after listening to his patient told his patient he is a Wigwan and a Teepee. The patient asked what the psychiatrist meant and the psychiatrist said you're two tents. Two tents (tense).

I can think of few jobs quite as odious as being Trump's Knob washer. I believe Mike Rowe turned down the opportunity to make an episode based on that premise.

I am confused by the Nepo Baby feference. Is she referring to Trump or Musk? Trump I can see, Musk, not so much. I do like the alliteration of nazi nepo. We have not had any really good political alliteration since the famous "nattering nabobs of negativism."

I appreciate your concerns and suspicions. We do need to consider this new phenomenon carefully for Constitutional authorization. I think we also need to round up the rascals that have been involved in what everybody seems to admit is rampant fraud and abuse and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. Frankly I think the term high crimes and misdemeanors certainly would apply to robbing the public treasury for personal gain including retention of political power. I believe that to be treason. I believe it should be punishable by death. Those who have saddled your progeny with massive debt have turned them into indentured servants. They have subjected the next generation to taxation without representation. That was sufficient cause for our first revolution.

I understand the physical award presented to winners is a gilded mushroom.

Why does that matter? They are merely calling to our attention the expenditures. If those expenditures are truely constitutional and justified then congress can reinstate them.

Ahhh, the beauty contest winner voted upon by those blinded by the uglies to whom they ae married. Who cares?

Ahhh yes, the Trumpy awards. His acceptance speech for winning his Trumpy should be interesting.

Like Timschochet!

Homely were you?

Unacceptable in those setting policy. Irrelevant to those doing an audit.

And just like that Trump's Greenland and Canada comments seem more or less normal.

They have always been within our striking distance. This would put us, within their striking distance

Seems that would be a route to Toxic Shock Syndrome. Do they have warnings on the product to not shove it up your ass? Has it been safety tested for that?

Done dirt cheap

A purple state. Not in my lifetime. They brought us Humphrey. They brought us Mondale. They are the blue in the red map of Reagan. You cannot begin to understadn 'Sotans until you have lived among them for a decade or more, and even then you probably will not even if you are shacking up with one of their women, can learn to stomach lutefisk, and have your own Icehouse you put out every year on Lake Minnetonka. They have an independant streak which is strong.

Its the curse of the Humperdome. When Bud Grant prowled the sidelinesof the old Met wearing only a Polo shirt during December games and the Purple People Eaters lined up with bloodcycles from their faces and knuckles, they were awesome. When the Vikes turned their backs on that and went inside the Humperdome they settled their fate. To bad too. I mean the Bears have a Lombardi for Christ's sakes. How the Vikings do not can only be explained by a curse.