While you’ve been distracted by Trump bringing the WWE to the world stage via tariff body slams leading to market knockouts, the end of due process thanks to doubling down on the illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Harvard resisting Trump’s plan to dictate many of the university’s operations, and Witkoff playing at being a diplomat in high-stakes negotiations, DOGE has continued burrowing away at the foundations of Federal agencies like hungry termites.
Keep in mind that DOGE’s aim is not to reduce inefficiency. It’s to reduce government operations in a very big way so as to:
Immiserate the poor and others DOGE deems to be burdensome…like Social Security beneficiaries who paid into the system, often over decades
Eliminate or wreck government functions so that the private sector can take over. But as we know, the government has been on an outsourcing kick for decades, so the idea that functions now operated at the Federal level can be done better by outsiders is suspect. This campaign is all about the opportunity for looting, and the harm to the operation of commerce and society be damned.
DOGE as a fraud: Claiming savings while increasing costs. We highlighted an earlier DOGE spreadsheet that claimed to show the source and amount of DOGE’s asserted cost reduction and showed that many of the biggest items were false. For instance, DOGE took credit for contacts that had already been terminated, and on top of that, cited the maximum authorized amount, when the actual expenditures were lower, often greatly so. DOGE then greatly reduced the information it presents so as to preserve its ability to lie.
DOGE has been a complete and total failure. pic.twitter.com/qAClziAldr
— Micah Erfan (@micah_erfan) April 11, 2025
Elon Musk has reduced the claims about what DOGE is saving from $1-2 trillion to $150 billion.
The NYT reports he’s still getting the numbers wrong through things like accounting errors and cancelling contracts that don’t exist.
What a fraud from start to finish. pic.twitter.com/69qjsixF5c
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) April 13, 2025
DOGE as destruction: Tearing down the highly efficient Social Security Administration, as opposed to taking on the pork machine of defense spending. On April 14, the Social Security Administration cut its phone staffing and also changed its policy so that “sensitive” information like bank details will no longer be taken over the phone. That means that if you can’t sign up for Social Security successfully online, you will have to go to an office…where getting someone to see you is Kafkaesque….and DOGE has promised to shutter offices.
And even before that, the Social Security site was already crashing, thanks to IT cuts. So even if you were to manage to get to see a live person at an office, if the system was down, they would not be able to address your issue.
And DOGE employees are still trying to defy a court order and access Social Security data…even with not just old hands but even some Trump officials in opposition. From the Washington Post:
Representatives of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service have sought for weeks to get around a court order barring their access to sensitive data and internal systems at the Social Security Administration, prompting career staff to repeatedly resist their efforts, according to a half dozen people familiar with the DOGE team’s actions and records obtained by The Washington Post.
The battle inside the agency led the Justice Department to intervene to deny DOGE access to the data, even as the Trump administration installed and promoted DOGE-friendly leaders to dramatically cut back services at Social Security.
Please read the piece in full. The reporting is impressive and revealing.
DOGE as fraud: Taking credit for finding abuses so well known they’ve been the subject of Congressional hearings, and resulted from Trump 1.0 expanded unemployment benefits. From Associated Press:
The latest government waste touted by billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency is hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims it purportedly uncovered.
One problem: Federal investigators already found what appears to be the same fraud, years earlier and on a far greater scale…
“They’re trying to spin this narrative of, ‘Oh, government is inefficient and government is stupid and they’re catching these things that the government didn’t catch,’” says Michele Evermore, who worked on unemployment issues at the U.S. Department of Labor during the administration of former President Joe Biden. “They’re finding fraud that was marked as fraud and saying they found out it was fraud….
Though states have almost complete control over their own unemployment systems, special relief programs — most notably widely expanded benefits enacted by the first Trump administration at the outset of the COVID pandemic — inject more direct federal involvement and a flood of new beneficiaries into the system….
Trump signed the COVID unemployment relief into law on March 27, 2020, and from the very start it became a magnet for fraud. In a memo to state officials about two weeks later, the Department of Labor warned that the expanded benefits had made unemployment programs “a target for fraud with significant numbers of imposter claims being filed with stolen or synthetic identities.”…
A Labor Department spokeswoman did not respond to questions about Musk’s findings and DOGE gave no details on how it came to find the supposed fraud or whether it duplicates what was already found.
Though DOGE ostensibly looked at longer timeframe than federal investigators previously had, it tallied just $382 million in fake unemployment claims, a tiny fraction of what investigators were already aware.
DOGE as fraud: After loudly promising transparency, DOGE is anything but. From Politico:
DOGE KEEPS IT UNDER WRAPS: The battle to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding DOGE and its operations is coming to a head in several lawsuits…
Many of the anti-DOGE….lawyers are trying to answer questions like: What is the basic structure of DOGE? Which officials were involved in cutting-and-slashing efforts? And what sort of access does DOGE have to sensitive agency systems?…
But the Justice Department is fighting vigorously to shield DOGE from having to divulge that information, despite Trump and ELON MUSK’s repeated assurances about transparency. The administration has refused to provide testimony from virtually every official that plaintiffs have tried to depose — and especially from people who work for DOGE.
The entire Politico piece, which goes through several cases of persistent evasiveness and misdirection, is worth reading.
DOGE as a fraud: Endangering national security, stealing data apparently to target opponents like organized labor. This is a much bigger caper than the Watergate break-in, but hacking is so common that even when insiders do it to abuse their power, the outrage is muted. From NPR which broke the story:
In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the Southeast Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board.
The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information.
The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB’s internal systems….
But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It’s possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
Threats against the whistleblower have a guilty look:
crazy. an NLRB whistleblower who shared concerns about DOGE’s activities with government officials was subjected to attempted blackmail and/or surveillance, likely by DOGE staff, in retaliation. pic.twitter.com/gyJrwYB2Fw
— Nat Purser (@NatPurser) April 15, 2025
DOGE as incompetent: exposing logins. Leaving tech doors unlocked is either incredibly amateurish or done deliberately to get something in return. Russians of course are one of our default bad guys. Readers can opine as to how hard it is to create the appearance of a “Russian IP address”. A VPM could achieve that, FFS.
Some (circumstantial) evidence that DOGE sloppiness is risking national security:
A Russian IP address has near real-time access to login credentials for DOGE accounts on federal systems. https://t.co/eajfmb0CRt pic.twitter.com/ccmoFxkhbj
— Santi Ruiz (@rSanti97) April 15, 2025
DOGE as fraud: Forcing resignation of tech experts, thus risking cyber attacks. People who actually know something about the relevant entity and have some tech chops might show up DOGE, and worse, rat out to external parties how DOGE is doing a piss poor job. One fresh case is the resignation of DoD ‘SWAT team of nerds.’ From Politico:
Under pressure from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, nearly all the staff of the Defense Digital Service — the Pentagon’s fast-track tech development arm — are resigning over the coming month….
The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 to help the Pentagon adopt fast tech fixes during national security crises and push Silicon Valley-style innovation inside the Pentagon. It built rapid response tools for the military during the Afghanistan withdrawal, databases to transfer Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid, drone detection technologies and more.
Without the program, some key efforts to streamline the DOD’s tech talent pipeline and counter adversarial drones will be sunset…
Several other digital modernization efforts within the government have met similar fates. The U.S. Digital Service, which helped the government modernize its technology and attract tech talent, has now been subsumed by DOGE, amid mass layoffs and firings. A program called 18F, a technology unit within the GSA, was eliminated by DOGE as well….
One former senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be named because of possible retaliation, described DOGE’s wider incursion into the Defense Department as damaging and unproductive
“They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything,” the former official said.
DOGE as destructive: Infighting as agency chiefs correctly point to DOGE doing damage, here killing people:
BREAKING: In a stunning moment, Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary just blamed Elon Musk and DOGE for cuts after multiple fatal aircraft crashes. This is shocking. pic.twitter.com/88fXHEWtSo
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) April 11, 2025
Recall that the New York Times had earlier reported on a Cabinet meeting row where Elon Musk pressed Secretary of State Mario Rubio over allegedly not having gotten rid of enough State staffers, which Rubio vigorously contested. Trump somewhat backed Rubio by calling for cuts to be surgical. But regardless, this was a behind-closed-doors dispute that was made public, and not one taken straight to the press.
And then we have ideological enforcement. Covid was supposedly a big Democratic party invention to allow for a power grab, ergo Covid was fake, ergo no need for Covid testing:
DOGE just shut down San Diego County’s wastewater testing system. No more research or monitoring for deadly diseases despite the critical role wastewater surveillance played in fighting COVID. Dangerous and really stupid.https://t.co/3e2LzRnnfs
— Mike Levin (@MikeLevin) April 15, 2025
And even the 250th Fourth of July celebration is also being jeopardized, although in light of the apparent “wreck the US as we know it” exercise, this is fitting. From Axios:
The big picture: State humanities councils planning 250th anniversary celebrations all over the country have had their funding slashed, and those organizations tell Axios they likely won’t be able to execute the big, patriotic plans they had been making.
- Trump has called for an “extraordinary celebration” next summer….
- The chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities is part of that task force, and state humanities councils across the country had a leading role in planning public events to mark the occasion.
But 80% of the NEH’s staff was placed on administrative leave earlier this month…
- Those layoffs came just days after the 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils were alerted that their funding grants were being terminated.
- “These were funds that were already appropriated, that had already been distributed through a competitive process, and they had already been under contract to be provided,” said Julie Ziegler, the CEO and executive director of Humanities Washington.
The latest: The National Endowment for the Humanities on Monday opened applications for 250 challenge grants, worth up to $25,000 each, for projects related to the “founding of the American nation, key historical figures, and milestones that reflect the exceptional achievements of the United States” in honor of the anniversary.
- But state officials say the cuts have already prompted them to shed staff and suspend new programming, so even the possibility of new anniversary-specific funding would not fill the massive gap.
DOGE survivors, for now. Despite being an early and high profile DOGE target, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, though a bit bloodied, is still standing. From Fortune:
On Tuesday evening, Sen. [Elizabeth] Warren and fellow Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, who both sit on the Committee of Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, demanded investigations into a push to slash the CFPB’s workforce and cancel its contracts….
A federal judge has temporarily reversed some of the initial cuts at the agency. As part of a lawsuit between a union representing CFPB employees and Vought, a judge ordered the CFPB to reinstate all its probationary and term employees. The order also blocked the agency from terminating employees without cause, issuing a reduction-in-force, or directing employees to stop work or take administrative leave while the case moves forward—though an appeals court said last week that the CFPB could allow work stoppages that didn’t interfere with its statutory duties.
Note that legal experts have repeatedly opined that DOGE can’t cancel contracts, but if DOGE breaches them by withholding payment, they can still kill the contractors since many need the money. That in many cases will have the effect of the victims getting a recovery if they have the means to put up a fight, while the government won’t get the work they will wind up (to at least a degree) paying for. Of course, DOGE wants to destroy firms that can help with enforcement of regulation, so cost is really not an objective, despite that serving as the pretext.
Maybe I’m just too critical but I would think that privatizing public assets and formulating policies that would benefit one’s own financial position, and that of cronies, is a giant conflict of interest and an example of institutional corruption.
Privatizing public assets that we have paid into for decades looks like flagrant theft to me. True, privatization and asset-stripping has been around a long time, but now the ugly face of Kleptocratic Oligarchy is front and center.
What good are laws when they are openly ignored, abused, and unenforced? Taxes and the law are only for the little people, I guess.
Now I hear the drug-addled Orange Idiot is threatening to deport US citizens. tyranny = free speech
And giving 10s of billions to foreign countries to mass murder folks, while millions of US dwellers go without basic necessities, is considered very “patriotic” by both Ds and Rs.
And the “autocratic east” is so barbaric, we are so proud of our “liberal democracy” and “rule of law” eh.
Look at what’s getting cut and what’s not. Maybe Trump will bring the whole system down but anything before that is about strong away hard earned protections for the average citizens while giving the predatory rich a free hand at looting the carcass.
Many were saying that in 1990s Eastern Europe, but freedom and democracy was unstoppable.
Seriously disturbing imagery floating around online about that El Salvador concentration camp. There appears to be a section with large “Merlot”-coloured splotches on the earth and blurry fleshy shapes. The word actual “death camp” is starting to make the rounds, Beyond chilling.
In Douglas Rushkoff’s book Survival of the Richest, he describes a conversation with a group of tech billionaires in which they basically said their top concern was maintaining order over their security guards when the Event occurred. And the Event was the social and ecological collapse that they knew their own actions were accelerating. (Almost echoing how Hegseth and Huckabee think about the Middle East.) They debated New Zealand vs. Alaska as suitable compound locations. DOGE fits into a collapse acceleration model, as does Musk’s bluster about human beings just being a vessel for higher tech beings, terraforming Mars, etc., and some crypto bros are now absurdly talking this way about Greenland. It’s hard to know what Musk actually believes vs. posturing for his online cult and the short-term gains of looting and state dismemberment.
The same attitude has been observed elsewhere. For instance, French economist Gaël Giraud reported on his discussions with very wealthy individuals about the impact of climate change and neoliberalism. He stated that they were perfectly aware that the current system is careening towards a foundering, but they were dismissive of any attempt to change or reform it, or mitigate its effects, and their only strategic reflection was “how can we escape the direst consequences and take as much as we can with us to some safe place?”
It is truly a world of every man for himself — damn the women and the children.
hahaha. billionaires losing control of their security guards will be an inevitable byproduct of an “Event”
There are documented late-stage Roman/Romano-British villa digsites whose evidence can be read like a movie script…..
barricaded doors, a layer of ashes, deceased elite Roman bodies identified by jewelry—undisturbed, buried by the debris.
And the leaders of the rabble who ousted their paymasters turned into the feudal warlords/chieftains….and arguably one (or more) of them became the Arthur myth.
“Property rights” mean nothing without any personal muscle to back it up. A common theme among post-apocalypse books. See the “Mad Max” franchise—the last law man in an increasing lawless world.
video essay: “Mad Max: When We All Stop Believing” 6 min. from the Feral Historian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnD50llAkP4&pp=
I’m starting to think that the clearest way to look at this is that the doggy boys are meme-ing their way into economic collapse, just as they meme-d themselves into a real bank run on SVB a couple of years ago.
They become obsessed with the possibility of collapse, convince their bubble it will happen, then carry it out, all the while believing they are responding to the facts on the ground, rather than being the ones who are precipitating and exacerbating what’s happening now.
The chaos, calumny, and sheer viciousness of the Trump administration is stunning, to say the least. The only folks that are going to survive this assault are those with enough of a cushion to live through it, or have enough legal support to stifle the onslaught. The devastation is only getting larger.
Will the US make it to a 250th Celebration? It certainly won’t make another decade.
So the expanded unemployment benefits for COVID, passed by overwhelming margins by both houses of congress, and praised to high heaven at the time by Schumer and every other democratic leader, then signed by a Trump who had played no part in the negotiations, now gets referred to as “the Trump 1.0” expanded unemployment benefits when we talk about associated fraud (more attempted than successful)?
This right up there with the way they took to describing the costs of those two huge relief packages, supported enthusiastically by every Democrat at the time (and indeed containing desperately needed relief for the populace) as just evidence of Trump’s cavalier deficit spending. We’ve gone from revisionist history almost th revisionist current events.
The COVID relief package was good but temporary and coincided with blocking Medicaid expansion and more deficit-ballooning tax cuts that set the stage for the long-term dismantling of the social safety net to pay for further tax cuts for robber barons. Needless to say, both parties are bought off by the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries and so are complicit in the hollowing out of Medicare and Medicaid. But how anyone with a conscience can rationalize DOGE’s attacks on seniors, veterans, workers attempting to unionize, etc. is utterly beyond me.
Please check the link in the post. The fraud level was epic even though it was also a very beneficial program. Both can be true. From Associated Press:
https://apnews.com/article/doge-trump-musk-unemployment-aa033544cb4e7167d0f310f0f93bbede
$100 to $135 billion is not far from what we spent on Project Ukraine (~$160 billion).
The goal of DOGE and Trump 2.0 is to continue the fraud without the knockon expense of public benefits.
The goal of DOGE and Trump 2.0 is to continue the fraud without the knockon expense of public benefits.
Heh. Exactly so.
As if I had any doubts, but Musk’s blind eye turned towards the military industrial complex was all I needed to know the goals were not truly about curbing government inefficiency and saving taxpayer money.
Yeah, and the Space X boondoggle, and the rest of the subsidies and contracts dude has received is not a giant waste and yet another example of the rot and corruption.
He’s got to be one of the biggest parasites around, and there is lots of competition.
They’re not going to curb the military industrial complex. Trump and Hegseth said that they are now going for a trillion dollar budget for the Pentagon. And they probably think that such a huge increase will be paid for by all those vassal countries writing them checks like appears on the White House website somewhere. Trump may want a Fortress America but he still wants the Pentagon raging around the planet destroying countries for fun and profit.
Democratic Wins Media is a scumbag outlet for that comment winking at a causal relationship between DOGE cuts and specific, recent aircraft crashes. The latest crash of note that killed the MIT star athlete and her whole family right now has all the earmarkers of yet another doctor-pilot with more money than good judgement, playing FAFO in the clouds with, in this case, a notoriously high performance aircraft, probably assuming that all the new Garmin toys in his instrument panel would take care of everything for him.
I work for a general aviation avionics manufacturer. I know these kinds of men. Whether in a funding feast or a famine, the government can only do so much to save them and, sadly, their kin.
That said, certainly Secretary Duffy is right to push back on cuts and explain that you can’t budget cut your way to a functioning air traffic control system.
And of course anyone who supports this slash and burn vandalism needs to take a long, hard look at the evolving saga of the NYC helicopter tour crash, because this shows what a positive thing it is when a regulator steps in and does its damn job:
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/ny-helicopter-director-of-operations-fired-within-minutes-of-agreeing-to-suspend-flights/
https://www.faa.gov/media/93311
TL:DR FAA asks director of heli tour flight ops to voluntarily stop ops during the preliminary crash investigation. Ops director agrees to cease ops. CEO of company immediately fires ops director. FAA immediately revokes tour company’s air-carrier certificate, citing requirement under 14 CFR 119.69, that any air carrier with more than one employed pilot must employ a director of flight ops.
Heli tour company CEO demonstrates his gross indifference to operating in the interest of customer safety, heli tour company CEO no longer gets to operate a heli tour company.
Of course, the way things are going I wouldn’t be the least bit supprised if Trump sacks Secretary Duffy and replaces him with someone whose first action is to order the FAA director to restore their air-carrier certificate and let the market sort things out.
Yep, DOGE/Trump think it’ll be great when you can buy what the FAA does as a private service.
Looks like we’re building runway for Comac just like we are for Covid and whatever other pandemic strikes.
“Rampage” is a very precise description. Thank you.
World Wildlife Fund? How did they get involved?
But on a more serious note, I loved that the WWE lost a lawsuit to the WWF and had to stop using that moniker.
Ooops, fat finger and lack of proofreading. Fixing.
On the breeching of the NLRB, IRS, and Social Security databases for fraud and blackmail possibilities, I wonder if DOGE is going to investigate for waste the US Marshals Service’s witness protection program?
I guess you miss President Biden.. and Kamela Harris in a big way. You left out the part that shows our national debt per GNP is double that of South Africa, and it is growing faster.
And yet the national debt could disappear in moments (trillion dollar coins, Fed buying and burning all outstanding debt, etc.).
“But but but the resulting inflation will piss off all the bankers,” you might caution. To which I would respond, “The man with nothing cares not about inflation.”
Not really.
It would be like asking an Ebola patient if they wished they had the bubonic plague instead…
Straw man and reading comprehension failure. The post at the top presented information that spending was GROWING under Musk, so the deficits you say you loathe are getting worse.
The diehard right wing Tax Foundation says deficits will get worse under Trump. From an April 2 release:
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tax-cuts-2025-budget-reconciliation/
Everyone with an operating brain cell has agreed that the tariff revenues will fall far short of the gap created by tax cuts.
And that’s before factoring in that the tariffs will produce a recession, which will lower tax receipts and increase the deficit.
Thank you one again for your patience with some of these comments, Yves.
Criticizing the insane and corrupt behavior of the Trump Administration is not an endorsement of Genocide Joe or “Hillary with a tan”.
The fact that the choice was between Harris and Trump showed how badly the system was broken before Trump’s wrecking crew took over.
Yes! I totally agree with what you wrote! I couldn’t bear to vote for either so I voted for Stein – as a protest vote to say – “No! I will not endorse a candidate that is on the side of the Israeli Genocide.” But I must admit, Trump is far worse than I expected – and I was bracing for the worst.
Bit unbalanced TBH. USAID which by many accounts has been used to destabilize many countries has been neutralized, surely that’s a good thing?
Also, where’s the journalism? Why did you think Musk (the richest person) is doing all these things?
“Why did you think Musk (the richest person) is doing all these things?” Power – It goes to most people’s heads and Musk is living in a particularly toxic bubble.
Seems many forget the Dems went 3rd way/Washington consensus decades ago, only thing dividing them and GOP is deftness and in your face today approaches or how the ideology is given to the unwashed.
Musk might not be single handily doing all this anymore than past Presidents or Economic propagandists albeit he has been a huge lightning rod for the movement e.g. suck more young minds to the cause.
PS don’t disagree in USAID being used[tm] but its not all about destabilizing nations. Furthermore many that gained income in the US for work, won’t have it. Magnify that by enough numbers and see the effect it has on the over all economy.
Balance for the sake of balance is not a good aim. Finding truth is a good aim, it is a good article on what DOGE is actually doing.
The parts of USAID that dealt with colour revolutions will likely be found within other agencies, I highly doubt the US will give up that tool.
You appear to be a true believer and/or a mark.
1. As Brian Berletic and others have pointed out, Trump officials in Congressional testimony described long form how the regime change operations run by USAID were not being eliminated but were being moved into State.
2. Musk’s motivations are besides the point. Actions speak for themselves. You are unable to rebut any of the criticisms in the post, so you engage in an appeal to authority, which is an invalid form of argumentation.
It seems curious that you expect me to be a mind reader or a therapist. However, since you invited this line of speculation, it appears not to have occurred to you that some people are ravenous maws of greed and no amount of money or power is enough.
USAID has been neutralized, but destabilization of many countries keeps going on.
Why did you think Musk (the richest person) is doing all these things? Money. He needs more money. He always needs more money. He has more than anyone else on this planet, but it’s just never enough to fulfill his dream of having even more money.
P.S.
What’s the difference between Elon Musk and God?
God does not think he is Elon Musk.
What’s the similarity between Elon Musk and God?
They love you, and they need money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iouZYYzQEjU&t=85s
(a video of sermon by St. Carlin)
So where is the article wrong? Why are you so tongue-tied in presenting this invisible “other side”?
So you want balance, like saying Israel’s genocide is OK? Or defending the Sacklers, who killed tens of thousands via Purdue Pharma, with McKinsey’s help, by finding unsophisticated doctors with patients in pain they could turn into Oxycontin addicts?
On a lot of issues, there is no other side.
So Steve Moore is a dead set rusted on indoctrinated ideologue, with a perch at a rich people funded think[????] tank, which uses cold reading rhetorical ploys like “you all know that is true/obvious to the crowd. Seems completely ignorant[tm] of the changes in monetary systems since Rome and worse the last 100 years in the US alone.
Completely/stakes stuck into the ground, no matter what, that taxes pay for government and not that government provides fiat to get the ball rolling aka the state is the dominate player in markets as it sets the stage both the laws which shape it and provides the initial funds which allow it to operate.
Completely white washes decades of neoliberal agenda and its outcomes regardless of political party. Dbl downs on markets are the most efficient means to structure any society and blames it all on government. So less government via comments about Musk/Doge is about rooting out so called fraud on tax payers [lmmao – see Corps] and its the little people fraud that is the big issue wrt stealing stuff.
At the end of the day Kelton will not put a dent in this unless people in the less than 10% can start informing others in their daily lives. Not on a religious or fundamentalist level, just dropping a dime here and there as is on offer, should not be a conflict, not adversarial, just present a different view of reality past and present and then allow them to reconcile it vs the reality that is unfolding at present. Then they might ask more questions and that allows space for a more deeper conversation.
Gasp … wrong spot … reply to Conner in links … self flagellation …
I believe that all of the weight of the lawsuits and actions to slow Trump, Project ’25, the pillaging and looting.. will be too little too late. BUT, the DOGE whistleblower at NLRB is pretty shocking and might help turn the Big Ship a few degrees… PBS Newshour… 6 minutes . I’d say must-see tee vee
Looks like we may have PBS and NPR, reviled as they are, until September.
Trump does have an omnidirectional firehouse waterboard engaged!
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/nlrb-whistleblower-claims-musks-doge-potentially-caused-significant-security-breach