Hank Posted February 7 Report Posted February 7 4 minutes ago, K-9 said: Per the bold, do you think DOGE is the first and only government entity charged with rooting out corruption and fraud in various government agencies? Do you find it mere coincidence that Trump summarily fired 17 Inspectors General (illegally I might add) before sicking DOGE on various agencies? Do you also find it ironic and hypocritical that the sitting Senator from Florida was the CEO of a company convicted of 14 felony counts of defrauding medicare, medicaid, and other government agencies? I think Trump is a vindictive man who will go after his opponents the way he believes they went after him. I believe he's corrupt like I thought Biden was corrupt. I don't trust FOX news any more than I trust CNN/MSNBC. I'm positive USAID is not the first corrupt organization tax payers fund and I don't believe they'll be the last. I believe there were organizations pre-DOGE, and will be post-DOGE, that investigate corruption. I believe we were given two shifty options to elect. I believe there is absolutely nothing I can personally do to alleviate my concerns with our government or my lack of trust in the media, the republican's or the democrats. All I can do is see what happens and hope for the best.
LGR4GM Posted February 7 Report Posted February 7 It's about to get worse. Project 2025 architect is now part of the government. https://bsky.app/profile/nytimes.com/post/3lhkf7ekwds2y https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/us/politics/russell-vought-omb-senate-vote.html
K-9 Posted February 7 Author Report Posted February 7 4 hours ago, LGR4GM said: Ddoge staffer resigns after it comes out he's a racist. https://www.wsj.com/tech/doge-staffer-resigns-over-racist-posts-d9f11a93 He had posted the following his social media over the years: "I was racist before it was cool" "I would not mind if Gaza and Israel were wiped off the face of the Earth" “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity" “Normalize Indian hate"
LGR4GM Posted Friday at 04:53 PM Report Posted Friday at 04:53 PM 51 minutes ago, Hank said: It's a bit long, but a good listen. It's a bit long, but a good example of propaganda. Pure, unfettered, propaganda. 2
K-9 Posted Friday at 05:03 PM Author Report Posted Friday at 05:03 PM 45 minutes ago, Hank said: It's a bit long, but a good listen. All due respect to Senator Kennedy, but all federal agencies’ spending is reviewed each month by the non-partisan CBO, who then issue their monthly reports on federal spending. Because these monthly reports are based on figures given to them by the Treasury Dept., I suspect the aim of Musk as it is in Project 2025, is to impugn the validity of the Treasury reports by accusing various agencies of all sorts of “fraud and corruption”, which he offers ZERO proof of as yet btw, as a pretense for eliminating those various agencies. But they have to create the propaganda narrative first. It’s a time-honored chapter in their fascist playbook. 1
Hank Posted Friday at 05:11 PM Report Posted Friday at 05:11 PM 2 minutes ago, K-9 said: All due respect to Senator Kennedy, but all federal agencies’ spending is reviewed each month by the non-partisan CBO, who then issue their monthly reports on federal spending. Because these monthly reports are based on figures given to them by the Treasury Dept., I suspect the aim of Musk as it is in Project 2025, is to impugn the validity of the Treasury reports by accusing various agencies of all sorts of “fraud and corruption”, which he offers ZERO proof of as yet btw, as a pretense for eliminating those various agencies. But they have to create the propaganda narrative first. It’s a time-honored chapter in their fascist playbook. Wouldn't all the expenditures be line item numbers? I'm sure at some point a report will be published, maybe even a book. If it turns out the senator is giving false information in that setting would that mean he's purgering himself? Genuine question, I don't know the answer. Is this how you want your tax dollars spent?
K-9 Posted Friday at 05:25 PM Author Report Posted Friday at 05:25 PM (edited) 14 minutes ago, Hank said: Wouldn't all the expenditures be line item numbers? I'm sure at some point a report will be published, maybe even a book. If it turns out the senator is giving false information in that setting would that mean he's purgering himself? Genuine question, I don't know the answer. Senators of both parties often give false information on the Senate floor, either knowingly or unknowingly, which I believe is the case most of the time. Perjury doesn’t apply as they aren’t under oath to tell the truth anyway, which is good for Trump who is the biggest liar imaginable. I attached an interesting article on Musk and his DOGE (well, interesting to those of us who still care about the Constitution and the rule of law, anyway). I particularly appreciated the info on why USAID was created. That reminder underscored for me how the agency is more important than ever given China’s efforts to buy influence around the world the last couple decades. https://newrepublic.com/article/191141/musk-government-takeover-supreme-court But let’s be honest, oligarchs, regardless of where they’re from, don’t give a crap about China’s or any other friend or foe’s influence around the world as they will continue to do business and make billions with those countries, anyway. Edited Friday at 05:26 PM by K-9 1
Hank Posted Friday at 05:36 PM Report Posted Friday at 05:36 PM 2 minutes ago, K-9 said: Senators of both parties often give false information on the Senate floor, either knowingly or unknowingly, which I believe is the case most of the time. Perjury doesn’t apply as they aren’t under oath to tell the truth anyway, which is good for Trump who is the biggest liar imaginable. I attached an interesting article on Musk and his DOGE (well, interesting to those of us who still care about the Constitution and the rule of law, anyway). I particularly appreciated the info on why USAID was created. That reminder underscored for me how the agency is more important than ever given China’s efforts to buy influence around the world the couple decades. https://newrepublic.com/article/191141/musk-government-takeover-supreme-court But let’s be honest, oligarchs, regardless of where they’re from, don’t give a crap about China’s or any other friend or foe’s influence around the world as they will continue to do business and make billions with those countries, anyway. Thank you for the bolded. I don't want USAID to go away, but some of the spending practices need to be cleaned up. I'm okay with it being audited. I know there's various slush funds in there the military uses for covert ops, I'm sure there's many that are not okay with that but I am. YMMV on your acceptance of much of what comes out of this. I read that the Department of Education is next on Musks audit list. That will no doubt piss off alot of people on both sides.
Hank Posted Friday at 05:44 PM Report Posted Friday at 05:44 PM I browsed "the new republic" home page. My impression is they're extremely left leaning, so I'll take anything they write about Trump or Musk with a huge grain of salt. Thank you for linking the article though, I thought it was an interesting read.
K-9 Posted Friday at 06:01 PM Author Report Posted Friday at 06:01 PM 9 minutes ago, Hank said: I browsed "the new republic" home page. My impression is they're extremely left leaning, so I'll take anything they write about Trump or Musk with a huge grain of salt. Thank you for linking the article though, I thought it was an interesting read. It’s good to take media messages with a grain of salt. But facts are facts, regardless of who is reporting them, which touches upon a huge issue I have in our current hyper-partisan environment among us electorate and that is to base truth upon our political leanings. Left, right, or center the truth is the truth no matter how uncomfortable it may be for us to accept and it should AWAYS be country before party. We have an epidemic of cognitive dissonance in our country and the cure, I suspect, will be uncomfortable for many.
LGR4GM Posted Friday at 08:03 PM Report Posted Friday at 08:03 PM Remember that Doge wants to destroy NOAA so they can take what they do and privatize it for profit. It has 0 to do with corruption or government waste. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/04/doge-noaa-headquarters 2 hours ago, K-9 said: Senators of both parties often give false information on the Senate floor, either knowingly or unknowingly, which I believe is the case most of the time. Perjury doesn’t apply as they aren’t under oath to tell the truth anyway, which is good for Trump who is the biggest liar imaginable. I attached an interesting article on Musk and his DOGE (well, interesting to those of us who still care about the Constitution and the rule of law, anyway). I particularly appreciated the info on why USAID was created. That reminder underscored for me how the agency is more important than ever given China’s efforts to buy influence around the world the last couple decades. https://newrepublic.com/article/191141/musk-government-takeover-supreme-court But let’s be honest, oligarchs, regardless of where they’re from, don’t give a crap about China’s or any other friend or foe’s influence around the world as they will continue to do business and make billions with those countries, anyway. Musk wants to destroy the government so he can profit. It's pretty simple.
LGR4GM Posted Friday at 09:01 PM Report Posted Friday at 09:01 PM https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/secrecy-becoming-defining-characteristic-elon-musks-doge-rcna190966 Quote Democrats have criticized Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency for failing to disclose the names of its staff members, its criteria for laying off certain government workers and its rationale for cutting programs. Which government data they are accessing remains not fully known. As of Wednesday, NBC News has confirmed that DOGE officials have been active at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees health care for more than 139 million people; the U.S. Agency for International Development; the Department of Veterans Affairs; and the U.S. Treasury. A White House spokesperson did not directly answer a question about whether DOGE requested the human resources records of the 14,000 GSA employees from IBM. DOGE is not a government agency. It is a trojan horse intent on taking over, and reshaping the government based on Elon Musk's desire to control it.
K-9 Posted Friday at 10:59 PM Author Report Posted Friday at 10:59 PM 2 hours ago, LGR4GM said: Remember that Doge wants to destroy NOAA so they can take what they do and privatize it for profit. It has 0 to do with corruption or government waste. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/04/doge-noaa-headquarters Musk wants to destroy the government so he can profit. It's pretty simple. Musk certainly isn’t alone as the “kill the beast” ideology has been around for a long time and arch-conservative GOPers have been seeking to undue FDR’s New Deal policies since they were enacted. And profit Musk and others will. Their next big target is the Dept. of Education as they’ve been looking to privatize that for years now. It won’t save taxpayers a penny as they will just put the nearly $50b budget into private pockets while at the same time lowering standards and attracting less capable people to administer and teach at public education institutions. And let’s look forward to science being edged out in favor of delusional fundamental religious dogma.
LGR4GM Posted Friday at 11:20 PM Report Posted Friday at 11:20 PM 17 minutes ago, K-9 said: Musk certainly isn’t alone as the “kill the beast” ideology has been around for a long time and arch-conservative GOPers have been seeking to undue FDR’s New Deal policies since they were enacted. And profit Musk and others will. Their next big target is the Dept. of Education as they’ve been looking to privatize that for years now. It won’t save taxpayers a penny as they will just put the nearly $50b budget into private pockets while at the same time lowering standards and attracting less capable people to administer and teach at public education institutions. And let’s look forward to science being edged out in favor of delusional fundamental religious dogma. Just had an argument with a group I'm in. They are all about downsizing government and Musk being in charge of it. When I pointed out that government isn't business, it got progressively more abusive towards me. I think it will be very bad going forward and a lot of people will cheer it on. By the time the long term consequences are felt, musk and trump and others will just deflect blame and enjoy their ill gotten gains.
LTS Posted Saturday at 12:53 AM Report Posted Saturday at 12:53 AM I'm not necessarily advocating or speaking up against anything at the moment. But I would caution that when cuts are made the value of things being cut might be in the eye of the beholder. We can all look at where money is spent by all kinds of organizations and wonder if it was wasteful. If everything were diluted to the bare, only what's needed, model of pure efficiency then the world would become quite sterile. It's what leads to the elimination of art. Again, that's not me saying any of this is right, or that corruption doesn't exist because it certainly does and the government is full of it. Just that caution must be had when any single entity or group begins wielding the machete. 1
LGR4GM Posted Saturday at 02:52 AM Report Posted Saturday at 02:52 AM 2 hours ago, Hank said: And where will that money go. It's all great if you say "hey guys this is wasteful so we're not spending here" but if it just gets funneled into musk or trumps pet projects, it's just more of the same.
LGR4GM Posted Saturday at 01:58 PM Report Posted Saturday at 01:58 PM 11 hours ago, LGR4GM said: And where will that money go. It's all great if you say "hey guys this is wasteful so we're not spending here" but if it just gets funneled into musk or trumps pet projects, it's just more of the same. But where will that money now go? For those ppl not named Hank, I recommend you read up on wikileaks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks They've certainly done some good, but like everything, they deserve a level of skepticism. Note wikileaks and Wikipedia are not related.
LTS Posted Saturday at 04:13 PM Report Posted Saturday at 04:13 PM Overall I think it's fascinating that suddenly Elon Musk's team (and others apparently) can find all these apparent misuse of funds, etc. It's almost as if someone just looked it would be so obvious. I'd like there to be a new news network called CorrupTV where they do nothing but expose corruption. Or, it's all misdirection to keep us focused away from what else is happening.
LGR4GM Posted Saturday at 04:18 PM Report Posted Saturday at 04:18 PM 4 minutes ago, LTS said: Overall I think it's fascinating that suddenly Elon Musk's team (and others apparently) can find all these apparent misuse of funds, etc. It's almost as if someone just looked it would be so obvious. I'd like there to be a new news network called CorrupTV where they do nothing but expose corruption. Or, it's all misdirection to keep us focused away from what else is happening. A museum exhibit isn't misuse of funds. And again, okay, they found money, where's it going now.
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