This is an opinion column.

Sometimes, the universe winks.

From above me came a noise I had heard only in movies — a shrill high-pitched announcement alerting onlookers below that the show was on.

“Here I am!” it seemed to say.

It couldn’t be, could it? Here? Now? No, way! But then I looked up, and there it was.

“Is that a %#*ing eagle?” I said, hoping someone nearby would tell me I wasn’t the only one seeing this.

And not just any old eagle, but a bald eagle coasting on the wind high above the U.S. Capitol.

It was the first time in my life I had seen one. And that it should happen the first time in my life I set foot in that place seemed a little too on the nose. Perhaps I was still in my hotel bed and didn’t know it, sleeping through the hearing I was there to cover.

I tried to take a picture of the thing. I captured a tiny silhouette — enough to show folks back home I hadn’t made this up — and then it glided away.

Well, that was weird, I thought.

I went back to the business I was there for, but I never quite put that bird out of my mind. I’ve had a feeling ever since then I would be going back there someday to look for it.

As it turns out, someday will be early next year.

Recently, my wife accepted a job in D.C. We’re packing our things and tidying up our home for someone else to live in. The Whitmires are going to Washington.

This, however, is not goodbye.

Beginning in January, I’ll be what we’re calling the Washington watchdog columnist.

But I’ll be leaving the place I’ve called home since I was six months old.

Alabamian for life

Where are you from? In the South, that question means three things.

1. Where were you born?
2. Where did you grow up?
3. Where do you live?

I was born in Georgia — a fact my mother reminded me of every time Alabama acted out in some embarrassing, national-news sort of way.

I grew up in Thomasville, Ala., where my family moved when I was three. It was two hours from the nearest movie-plex and a great place to do a lot of reading.

Nearly 30 years ago, I moved to Birmingham to attend a small college that sadly no longer exists. This city is where I met my wife. It’s where my children were born. It’s where I covered the mad foibles of a lunatic mayor and chronicled the once-largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States. And it’s from here that I watched the poisonous politics of my home state seep into the national bloodstream.

Alabama has been good to me, although not so much for others. I’ll be sad to leave it.

Alabama has been and always will be my home.

Alabamafication of D.C.

There’s a great change happening in our nation — that thing I’ve nicknamed the Alabamafication of America. The epicenter of that shift, however, was never Montgomery, but Washington, D.C.

Hating on Washington has become a national pastime and a gimmick charlatans use to win public trust they never earned. What George Wallace started, long before I was born, now threatens our national character, our stability and our standing in the world. When a president-elect chooses a Fox News TV personality to lead the Defense Department, you know something has gone an Alabama sort of way. When Matt Gaetz could be our next attorney general or Tulsi Gabbard the director of national intelligence, the universe isn’t winking anymore. It’s pulling the fire alarm.

My wife and I made the decision to move to D.C. before we knew the outcome of the election, and since then, friends have asked if we were certain this was the right thing for us. I’ve never been more certain of anything.

If someone is going to cover the Alabamafication of America, who else but an Alabamian?

There, I will follow around Alabama’s elected officials, sit through their meetings, get my nose up in their business, and let folks back home know what they’re up to. What I once did at Birmingham City Hall, and then did for Alabama state lawmakers, I’ll do on Capitol Hill.

Alabama has prepared me for this as only she could. For that and so much more, I am grateful.

I’m excited to explore, examine and report back what I see there — not writing about Washington for Washington, but for Alabamians.

And just maybe, I’ll find that damn bird.

Harry Benson Washington DC: Iconic Photographs for the Nation’s Capital, is the title of the exhibition presented for 6 months by Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Ted and Lynn Leonsis.

Located next door to Capital One Arena at 707-709 7th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001, the gallery spans two floors and over 10,000 square feet. The exhibit, which is free and, features over 150 photographs including every president and first lady since Dwight Eisenhower, iconic photographs of athletes including Muhammad Ali, musicians, including a behind the scenes look at The Beatles arrival to the United States, a historic chronicling of the civil rights movement in America.

www.monumentalsports.com

President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to restructure federal agencies and cut bureaucracy could have a major impact on the D.C. area, where the government is the largest employer.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk and conservative activist Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short, Trump announced Tuesday night. Despite its name, the group will function outside of government and not be a government agency.

“These two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said in a statement.

News4 is working to learn more about how DOGE could affect federal employees and the DMV. Here’s what we know so far.

What is the Department of Government Efficiency and how will it work?

Trump said in his statement that Musk and Ramaswamy will offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He added the move would shock government systems.

It’s not clear exactly how the organization will operate. It could come under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how external groups that advise the government must operate and be accountable to the public.
Federal employees are generally required to disclose their assets and entanglements to ward off any potential conflicts of interest, and to divest significant holdings relating to their work.

The arrangement would likely allow Musk and Ramaswamy to continue working in the private sector and serve without Senate approval.

Trump didn’t immediately provide details about how the two men would work together or who might pay for the operations of the group.

Trump had made clear Musk would likely not hold any kind of full-time position, given his other commitments.

“I don’t think I can get him full-time because he’s a little bit busy sending rockets up and all the things he does,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in September. “He said the waste in this country is crazy. And we’re going to get Elon Musk to be our cost cutter.”

Here are five things to know about Elon Musk.

How many federal employees are there in the D.C. area and what could job cuts mean for the DMV’s Black middle class in particular?

Of more than 2 million full-time federal workers across the U.S., more than 300,000 are concentrated in the D.C. metro region.

For generations of Black residents of the DMV, federal jobs have been a powerful driver of wealth and stability. Federal job cuts could be particularly devastating to Black communities in our region, as the News4 I-Team reported.

More than 18% of federal workers are Black, according to the most recent statistics from the Office of Personnel Management. That’s higher than the proportion of Black Americans that make up the country’s population, at just over 12%.

Unionized federal employee Aleseia Saunders, a mother of three who works for the Department of Education, told News4 her family constantly worries about changes to the federal workforce.

“What’s going to happen to my household? What’s going to happen to my paycheck? What’s going to happen to my career?” Saunders asked.

Black Americans have been drawn to federal jobs in part because of benefits that have often eluded Black employees in private workplaces, Howard University political science professor Marcus Board previously told News4.

“They have worker protections, federal worker protections, that are guaranteed by the federal government, and so it’s one of the few places where they can be sure that they’re going to be supported, protected and taken care of,” he said.

What do we know about the goals of the Department of Government Efficiency?

The president-elect has often said he would give Musk a formal role overseeing a group akin to a blue-ribbon commission that would recommend ways to slash spending and make the federal government more efficient.

Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which is more than the discretionary budget of $1.7 trillion. He has provided few details about what he’d like to cut, though he has attacked relatively small recipients of federal money, such as the Education Department and NPR.

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said in the statement released by Trump’s transition team.

On X, he added: “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!”

Ramaswamy has called for mass layoffs at federal agencies, a tactic that could sidestep legal protections that otherwise insulate the federal civil service from targeted political cuts.

Ramaswamy campaigned for president in the Republican primaries on eliminating federal agencies, and his initial targets included the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Education Department; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Food and Nutrition Service within the Agriculture Department.

Trump said he wanted the department to help deliver “drastic change.” He compared its ambitions to those of the World War II project to develop atomic weapons.

“It will become, potentially, ‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time,” Trump said. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”

He gave a deadline of July 4, 2026, for the department to conclude its work.

What does the acronym DOGE reference?

“DOGE” is a nod to a meme and the dogecoin cryptocurrency associated with Musk.

How will the Government Accountability Office interact with the Department of Government Efficiency?

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the main federal government watchdog, indicated it would provide any necessary information to the new entity.

“GAO has cooperated and shared information in the past when presidential or congressional commissions have been established to address the federal government’s programs and operations, as well as fiscal and other challenges. We will take that same approach with any new commissions formed and stand by ready to assist the new Congress and the Executive branch,” Gene Dodaro, United States Comptroller General and head of the GAO, said in part in a statement.

What do Project 2025 and Trump’s previous Schedule F executive order have to do with the Department of Government Efficiency?

Project 2025 is the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation’s sweeping plan for the incoming president. Its guidebook for Republican presidents has been published every four years for decades.

The document lays out the return of Trump’s Schedule F executive order, which was reversed by President Joe Biden. It would strip job protections from career officials in policy roles, make it easier to fire civil servants and require loyalty to the president.

Though former Trump officials helped craft Project 2025 and the plan praises Trump’s prior administration, the president-elect has distanced himself from the plan. He said in his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that he had not read the document and will not read it.

The News4 I-Team asked experts on both sides of Project 2025 how the dismantling would affect the D.C. area’s Black middle class. News4’s Tracee Wilkins reports.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

Facing a possible overhaul to the federal workforce, Department of Housing and Urban Development employee Ashaki Robinson previously told News4 she loves her job and doesn’t want to even consider leaving it.

“It has created such a stability. People talk about my ‘good government job.’ My good government job has paid for a lot of things,” she said.

This article includes reporting by NBC News’ David Ingram and Vaughn Hillyard, The Associated Press’ Colleen Long and Jill Colvin, and NBC Washington’s Tracee Wilkins and Caroline Tucker