DOGE TOADY
The Seagull
He’s a congressman. His constituents should have demanded proof of life before voting for him.
This isn’t the satire or humor readers normally expect from me. It’s a semi-serious piece which describes what Congressional Republicans, Musk and Trump are doing, not at the 30,000 foot level, but to people on the ground in one congressional district. If you prefer my satires and humor, please feel free to skip this article. I’ll resume my usual nonsense in the coming weeks.
A town hall meeting was held in Escanaba, Michigan this week to speak with Congressman Jack Bergman¹ about the damage inflicted on his constituents by Musk, Trump, and congressional Republicans. Jack wasn’t there, of course. He hasn’t held a town hall since shortly after being sworn in for his first term in 2017.² “Jack just does an occasional photo op,” said Mr. Toivo Harkonen, an iron miner from Ishpeming. “You see, Jack’s a seagull: he swoops in, eats the food, splatters crap all over everyone, then takes off.”
Congressman John Warren “Jack” Bergman, age 78, is a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general and a life-long Republican. He represents the Michigan 1st Congressional District, population ~786,000, encompassing the Upper Peninsula and the top half of the Lower.³
Times are tough in the Michigan 1st. Per capita annual income is ~$37,000.⁴ Thirteen percent of the residents live at or below the poverty line.⁴ People worry about inflation, affordable housing, and the dearth of jobs which pay a living wage.¹¹
But Jack doesn’t worry about those things. Judging by the only laws he’s sponsored, Jack’s worried about:
- Changing the names of two Veterans Affairs clinics; and
- Improving “oversight of contracts awarded by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to small business concerns owned by veterans.”⁶
Jack has written just three laws during his eight years in Congress. Clearly, said the attendees at the town hall meeting, he needed to be confronted with how little he’s done to improve the lives of his constituents.
But how to confront the putative representative of an Up North Michigan district who winters in Florida, summers incognito in Michigan, and shows up in Washington only when Republican leaders need him to vote on something?
The answer, said a gaffer from Germfask, was the old saying among the Finnish miners who immigrated to the Upper Peninsula in the 19th century: Jos et voi voittaa heitä, liity heihin. (If you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em.) “Let’s not protest what Musk’s doing,” he said. “Let’s cooperate with him. Musk’s been sending an email to federal employees.”
Subject: What did you do last week?
Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished
last week.
Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.⁷
“Let’s list five things Jack did last week, email ’em to Musk, and carbon Jack. Maybe then Jack’ll realize we’re onto him and start stepping up for us. Or Musk’ll realize Jack is an example of the ‘waste, fraud and abuse’⁸ he’s trying to get rid of, and fire him. Either way, we win.”
The meeting attendees voted in favor of the gaffer’s proposal and got down to work. They knocked out a “What I accomplished last week” list for Jack in less than an hour. The county clerk typed it into an email, sent it to hr@opm.gov,⁹ and copied Jack. And to ensure Elon and Jack got the picture, the items were accompanied by photos of people’s pets doing what Jack had done.
Folks at the meeting began by noting that 18% of people in the Michigan 1st can’t afford commercial health insurance.¹⁴ It’s no wonder: their annual household earnings are below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). For a family of four in Michigan, that’s $42,760 per year.¹⁰
The good news is, that makes them eligible for Medicaid.¹² It pays for their hospitalizations, emergency room visits, disability assistance, and nursing home care.
The bad news is, Jack wants to slash their Medicaid benefits. He just voted to cut Medicaid spending by $880 billion over the course of ten years to offset $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for wealthy Americans and Corporateworld.¹³
That led to the first thing on Jack’s “What I did last week” email to Elon.
#1. I crapped on my constituents.
Next, people observed that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has cut programs which help Jack’s constituents. Jack’s ok with it. “We need to get our spending under control,“ said Jack. “Identifying and cutting waste and misused government funds is the perfect place to start.”¹⁵
What’s an example of “misused of government funds?” The program for controlling the sea lamprey population in the Great Lakes.
The lamprey is an invasive species which targeted fish harvested by the commercial fishing industry, and killed them both in the late 1940s.¹⁶ Since 1958, American and Canadian authorities have controlled the lamprey population. They’ve applied a pesticide each year to the creature’s river mouth nurseries which kills 90% of the lamprey larvae.¹⁷ That’s allowed fish stocks to be re-established. Not enough to restore the fishing industry. But it's sufficient to maintain a sport fishing economy worth $5.1 billion¹⁸ to lakefront communities, including hundreds in the Michigan 1st.
But Musk, being the world’s richest man, thinks firing federal employees is worth more than a paltry $5.1 billion economy. So his DOGE laid off the fourteen U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service staffers who ran the lamprey program (most of whom worked in Jack’s district).¹⁹ And it forbade the hiring of the seasonal workers who apply the pesticide.
Jack has no objection. Indeed, he’s joined the so-called DOGE Caucus in the House¹⁵ so he can eliminate similar “misuses” of taxpayer dollars.
That resulted in the next item on Jack’s “What I did last week” list.
#2. I enthusiastically rolled in a pile of Musk dung.
Jack loves to remind people that, being a Marine Corps veteran, he’s a “Veterans’ Champion.” He’s “committed his career in Congress to those who served and sacrificed to defend our Nation and our freedoms.”²⁰ That’s good for veterans in the Michigan 1st, who number ~54,000, or 8% of its population.²¹
.Musk, however, has a different way of thanking vets for their service. He’s cancelled 875 Veterans Administration contracts.²² Those were with companies which:
- Ensured veterans’ disabilities were correctly rated so vets wounded during their service will receive medical care and financial support;
- Facilitated chemotherapy for vets with cancer by assembling related information held by the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense; and
- Helped veterans establish whether they’d been exposed to toxic substances during their service by researching information belonging to the National Archives and Records Administration.
Did Jack object to what Elon did? No, Jack joined in Musk’s feeding frenzy by becoming a member of the DOGE Caucus in the House. That way, he can use the skills he learned in the Marine Corps to seek out and destroy similar kinds of government “waste, fraud, and abuse.”¹⁵
That led to the next item on Jack’s list.
#3. I butt-scooted on veterans’ benefits.
People in the Michigan 1st worry about the cost of fuel and the lack of affordable housing.⁶ During his campaign for president, Trump promised to reduce them both.²³ Now Trump’s in office. How’s he made good on that promise?
By imposing tariffs which raise the cost of:
- Oil imports from Canada by 10%;²⁴
- Lumber imports from Canada by 25%;²⁴ and
- Gypsum imports from Canada by 25% and from China by 20%.²⁴ (Gypsum is used to make drywall.)
Trump tariffed Canada because, according to him, “the fentanyl coming from Canada is massive.”²⁵ That depends on how you define “massive.” “Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted 19 kilograms of fentanyl at the Canadian border [42 pounds], compared with 9,600 kilograms at the border with Mexico [21,000 pounds].”²⁵
People in the Michigan 1st know the tariffs will jack up the costs of fuel and housing.²⁶ What’s Jack had to say about it? Nothin’.²⁷
There it was, the fourth item on Jack’s “What I did last week” list.
#4. I should have had my constituents’ backs. Instead, I chose to be Trump’s bitch.
To come up with Jack’s fifth and final bullet item, people recalled that he spent forty years in the Marine Corps, the Rhode Island National Guard, and the Marine Corps Reserve. Jack flew Marine CH-46 transport helicopters during the Vietnam War, followed by peacetime flying, staff, and command assignments. He retired as a lieutenant general.²⁸
Consequently, Jack knows a strong leader when he sees one. And that Trump is a weak leader.
- Trump doesn’t know how to govern effectively. He doesn’t understand government institutions and processes. He isn’t familiar with issues the government should address. Nor is he interested knowing them. Even if he was, he lacks the patience and mental discipline to learn them. Trump can’t sit through a briefing for more than ten minutes before his mind starts to wander.
- Trump doesn’t have the temperament to govern effectively. He’s petty, obstreperous, vindictive, and prone to volcanic temper tantrums. And he can’t control those impulses.
- Trump lacks political skills. He speaks at a fourth grade level,²⁹ so he can’t make a convincing case for his position. Furthermore, he can’t commit to one. Trump’s purely transactional. His only abiding principle is “What’s in it for me.” And he’s mendacious, so he can’t be trusted to honor an agreement.
- Trump isn’t backstopped by staffers who are competent and have the nation’s best interests in mind. Instead, he’s populated his administration with inexperienced, unqualified, and unethical lickspittles, opportunists, ideological extremists, and conspiracy theorists.
As a result, though Trump has all three branches of government at his disposal, he’s unable to work through Congress to pass laws which create durable solutions to domestic problems. And he’s incapable of cooperating with other nations to solve international ones.
Instead, Trump must rely on Elon Musk, an extra-governmental, morally-insensible, mentally-unbalanced chaos agent, to create the illusion that Trump is achieving things. That’s even though Musk is just swinging a wrecking ball. Trump’s only alternative has been to issue Executive Orders which accomplish nothing, are blocked by the courts, or whose shelf life is limited to the duration of his presidency.
As for international affairs, Trump is easily manipulated by Putin and other despots because he thinks they’re the cool kids and he craves a seat at their table.
Jack knows all this. He realizes Trump is only technically the Commander in Chief. Practically speaking, Trump’s the Toddler-in-Chief.³⁰
But Jack doesn’t care. He’d rather keep his job than honor his oath as a congressman and Marine to protect and defend the Constitution.
Which brings up the last item on Jack’s “What I did last week” list for Musk.
#5. I praised Trump’s leadership despite knowing the truth: Trump’s a big pussy.
[1]: Jack Bergman, Congressman, House.gov, https://bergman.house.gov/
[2]: “‘What did you do last week?’ Read the email DOGE sent to federal workers.”, Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/read-email-doge-office-sent-federal-employees-monitor-productivity-2025-2
[3]: “Elon Musk Tells Government Employees to List 5 Things They Did Last Week or Be Fired to See Who Has ‘Two Working Neurons’”, People, https://people.com/elon-musk-email-ultimatum-five-accomplishments-11685549
[4]: “Michigan’s 1st congressional district”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan's_1st_congressional_district
[5]: “Congressional District 1, MI”, Census Reporter, https://censusreporter.org/profiles/50000US2601-congressional-district-1-mi/
[6]: “New Data Shows the Economy Was the Deciding Factor for Voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan”, Data For Progress, https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/11/22/new-data-shows-the-economy-was-the-deciding-factor-for-voters-in-pennsylvania-and-michigan-and-harris-missed-opportunities-to-play-up-economic-populism
[7]: “Poll: What is the most important political issue in Michigan?”, WLNS, https://www.wlns.com/news/poll-what-is-the-most-important-political-issue-in-michigan/
[8]: Representative Jack Bergman, Congress.gov. Select the following filters: Member Activity: Sponsored Legislation. Congress: Check all. Status of Legislation: Became Law. https://www.congress.gov/member/jack-bergman
[9]: “Congressional District 1, Michigan”, DataUSA, https://datausa.io/profile/geo/congressional-district-1-mi
[10]: “2025 Federal Poverty Levels”, American Council on Aging, https://www.medicaidplanningassistance.org/federal-poverty-guidelines/
[11]: “Trump’s vow to preserve Medicaid collides with House GOP plan for tax cuts”, The Hill, https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5154286-trump-medicaid-cuts-gop-plan/
[12]: Jack Bergman, Press Releases, House.gov, https://bergman.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1341
[13]: “Sea Lamprey: A Great Lakes Invader”, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, https://www.glfc.org/sea-lamprey.php
[14]: “Sea Lamprey Control in the Great Lakes: A remarkable success!”, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, https://www.glfc.org/control.php
[15]: “Report: Great Lakes recreational fishing worth billions to economy”, Michigan Public Radio, https://www.michiganpublic.org/environment-climate-change/2025-01-16/report-great-lakes-recreational-fishing-worth-billions-to-economy-but-not-as-much-as-often-cited
[16]: “Trump firings hit Great Lakes sea lamprey program, Michigan forestry workers”, Bridge Michigan, https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watch/trump-firings-hit-great-lakes-sea-lamprey-program-michigan-forestry
[17]: “Veterans’ Champion”, Lt. General Jack Bergman For Congress, https://www.bergmanforcongress.com/issues#SecondAmendment
[18]: “Congressional District 1, MI”, Census Reporter, https://censusreporter.org/profiles/50000US2601-congressional-district-1-mi/
[19]: “VA pauses billions in cuts lauded by Musk”, Politico, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/26/va-pauses-billions-in-cuts-lauded-by-musk-00206372
[20]: “2024 GOP Platform: Make America Great Again!”, Republican National Committee, https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/?_gl=1*d9wqqd*_gcl_au*MTY5MjA4MzA5Ni4xNzI2NDk5MTAw&_ga=2.17181054.650074224.1726499101-340505324.1726499101
[21]: “Trump Signs Orders Imposing Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China”, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/us/politics/canada-mexico-china-trump-tariffs.html
[22]: “Trump calls Canada a big player in the fentanyl trade. Is it?”, The Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trump-calls-canada-a-big-player-in-the-fentanyl-trade-is-it/?obOrigUrl=true
[23]: “Trump Says Canada and Mexico Tariffs Will Go Into Effect Next Week”, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/us/politics/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china.html
[24]: “Tariffs could increase UP housing prices”, WLUC-TV6, https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2025/02/04/tariffs-could-increase-up-housing-prices/
[25]: “Lawmakers say Trump’s tariffs will hurt Michigan consumers”, The Michigan Independent, https://michiganindependent.com/economy/donald-trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-china-consumer-prices-house-representatives-senate/
[26]: Jack Bergman, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Bergman
[27]: “Trump Speaks At Fourth-Grade Level, Lowest Of Last 15 U.S. Presidents, New Analysis Finds”, Newsweek, https://www.newsweek.com/trump-fire-and-fury-smart-genius-obama-774169
[28]: “Immature leadership: Donald Trump and the American presidency”, International Affairs, Oxford Academic, https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/96/2/383/5722298
