While I ain’t one to speak ill of a man doing his job—when a fella like Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford sets up a website to collect grumblings and bellyaches over Social Security and then has the gall to call it a crusade for commoners, well, I reckon we’ve wandered clean off the trail of common sense and into the thornbushes of political grandstanding.
Puffed up like a turkey on Thanksgiving Eve, Mr. Ford launched a shiny new webpage so Nevadans could report any hiccups or hangnails they experienced with their Social Security checks. It ain’t a fix-it line, nor is it meant to smooth the road for folks needing their funds.
No, sir—it’s more like a suggestion box nailed to a lawsuit waiting to happen as Ford’s sayin’ it’ll get used in “future litigation,” which sounds like he’s fixin’ to sue the federal government before finding out if there’s anything worth suing over.
But Ford didn’t stop there. He rolled up his sleeves, squared his jaw, and declared, “I will not allow the Trump administration to destroy a safety net…”
Well, bless his heart. Ain’t it like a politician to go hollerin’ ‘fire’ when someone lights a match to read the fine print?
Let’s get something straight: the Trump Administration is trying to fix a leaking boat, not sink it. With a federal bureaucracy bloated like a cow filled with green apples, some trimming’s bound to rattle a few folks who’ve grown fat on inefficiency. Trump’s reforms to Social Security aim to bring modernization and fraud prevention—noble aims if ever there were—and not, as Mr. Ford would have you believe, the dismantling of civilization as we know it.
Ford even took issue with the closure of a Las Vegas field office and called it a “disastrous” move. But lo and behold, the Social Security Administration said, “Whoa there, partner—we haven’t permanently closed a single local office.”
That’s right–no permanent closures, just a bit of reshuffling in the name of good governance.
The SSA’s also rolled out new phone policies to keep scammers from suckin’ funds outta Uncle Sam’s wallet. Folks now have to prove who they are either online or in person. Sure, it’s a tad inconvenient for those who still holler into rotary phones or live five hours from the nearest fiber-optic cable, but the alternative—rampant fraud—isn’t any better.
Still, Ford’s more interested in lawsuits than solutions. He’s got a whole cabinet full of‘em—suing over birthright citizenship, public health grants, even Elon Musk. I don’t know what Elon did to Nevada, but I reckon Mr. Ford’s got a dartboard with Musk’s face next to his “Sue Trump” calendar.
And yet, Ford insists, “I am not afraid…” Well, maybe he oughta be—of wasting taxpayer dollars on political theater while the folks back home want their checks to arrive on time and their country to work as promised. There’s a chasm between standing up for citizens and showboating for the next election cycle.
The truth is that the Trump Administration is doing the heavy lifting that previous ones were too timid to attempt. Reforming Social Security and other federal programs isn’t an act of cruelty it’s an act of necessity. And it’s about time someone did it.
So Mr. Ford can collect all the complaints he wants, but he’d do well to remember that whining ain’t policy and grandstanding ain’t governance.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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