In a plot twist that would make even the most dramatic courtroom drama writers jealous, a federal judge has declared that DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) went a little too rogue when it decided to play financial freeze tag with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The judge ruled that DOGE’s decision to cancel roughly $100 million in grants—money that Congress had already given the green light for the NEH to distribute—was about as legal as a three-dollar bill. Apparently, when Congress says “here’s money for humanities grants,” they actually mean it, and not “here’s money that a government efficiency department can later decide to pocket for efficiency’s sake.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities, which supports everything from historical research to cultural preservation projects, suddenly found itself in the awkward position of having to explain to grant recipients that their funding had been yanked faster than a magician’s tablecloth trick, except nobody was impressed and all the dishes broke.
DOGE, presumably named after the internet meme featuring a confused-looking Shiba Inu (because why not add some digital-age whimsy to government efficiency?), learned the hard way that cutting government spending isn’t quite as simple as hitting the delete key on a computer.
The ruling essentially told DOGE to sit, stay, and remember that Congress controls the purse strings—not efficiency-minded departments with cryptocurrency-inspired names. One can only imagine the humanities scholars across the nation breathing a collective sigh of relief that their research into medieval poetry and Civil War letters won’t be derailed by an overzealous efficiency initiative.
Source: UPI Odd News
Original story via UPI Odd News