Yes, it takes time. But right now, DOGE seems like a huge security risk for the USG what with it setting up backdoors everywhere, and with unvetted staff working for it.
I just emailed my representative (Mike Lawler) and I suggest everyone who's concerned about this activity and capable of offering compelling insights into why this activity (active data breach) is so concerning do the same. Perhaps they're somehow blissfully unaware of the security implications of these folks accessing data (it's only read-only access, though, so don't worry! /s), copying it to ... wherever?, running it through ChatGPT or tinkering in production on critical Cobol systems is and we can enlighten them.
If they hadn't already obviously ceded that title before 2025, they certainly did when over a thousand duly convicted violent partisan offenders were pardoned.
These weren't just random people, they were accomplices of the person who pardoned them.
We're in an autocratic United States now, where no crime, no matter how violent, committed by members of the regime will be prosecuted.
He is in a D+3 district that usually votes Democratic. That would usually moderate him. But see above about he would have to first survive a primary.
If concerned people debate future risks instead, the other team has scored an A+.
If you want to mitigate what had happened, you need to bring your own extremely resourced criminals. I really feel sorry for all affected.
I have a very pro-technology worldview. I'm independent leaning left but I thought that Democrats have been extreme, wasteful and untrustworthy in their own ways.
It's very unfortunate that this stuff like efficiency and technology integration is now associated so closely with neo-Nazis. Maybe I just didn't want to believe it. But when Musk did those Hitler salutes, I had to accept a new reality.
I don't think cutting programs or screwing up code is our main worry. The Secretary of Defense is literally an alcoholic neo-Nazi Crusader who talks about almost nothing besides getting rid of affirmative action and how evil Muslims are.
I am scared that they will actually try to deport millions of people, there could be massive detainment camps that become concentration camps. You only need a lack of food and one or two really serious neo-Nazis for that to become a death camp.
I am also afraid that they might trigger WWIII, fully fueled by racial hatred and dehumanization of Chinese people.
I am almost scared to write posts like this because who knows if they will start hunting down people from the internet.
I've worked for both. I have seen massive waste in business, millions spent for no gain, staff employed to build a manager's empire, not to do anything that was actually needed and other terrible outcomes. Obviously that also happens in government too, although the bigger problem there was a whole bunch of lazy staff who were hard to fire.
But... A business can largely choose its market and optimise for that. A government cannot - it has to work for pretty much everyone. Business can choose to skirt the law or even break it. Government departments must comply with all law to the best of their ability.
Not saying there are no ways to improve government efficiency. But the people who think you just need a business approach (unless you just want to break it all) are deluded.
Government services should be efficient, but that should never happen at the cost of being independent from the people in office, transparent, auditable, secure, and accountable.
Do not mistake the Nazi's too. They were very efficient and highly organized. IBM played a great role in delivering the tech the Nazi's needed.
DOGE is a farce and I hate that I have to type the name of a joke from 2009 because Elon is a child and Trump is a crook.
I don't think “efficiency and technology integration” is. I think DOGE is because its being done by neo-Nazis and in support of a blatantly fascist administration and doing things that look a lot more like ideological censorship and corrupt self-dealing than efficiency and technical integration, including specifically targeting things in government that actually did efficiency and technical integration.
Blue team also required a bunch of thought-killing exercises and public signalling of things that are clearly inefficient and intellectually bankrupt and dishonest--this drove away a lot of smart people that actually wanted to get shit done, and made it easy for red team to point over and say "see, they're lying/delusional/woke?" as covering fire when red team pushed for their own odious agendas.
Blue team also not only failed to address issues but deliberately lied about them: the immigration crisis was pilloried when Trump wanted to build a wall, but once Biden took power a few weeks later suddenly _then_ the immigration crisis was a real policy concern. When people were complaining about the cost of food and goods, that was silly--but now that Trump's in power, suddenly we are told to care again. The attempted manufacturing of consent by the media on the left (and to be clear, red team does the same thing) is now too obvious not to be used against them.
Given all of this:
* Things aren't as bad as they're being made out to be, though they are serious.
* There is an entire industry relying on your fear and anxiety to exist, so practice good information hygiene.
* Maybe look beyond the obvious labels (woke, Nazi, marxist, fascist) to understand what's actually going on--don't be intellectually lazy.
* Revisit the things you think you know and why they're Good or not--and consider what others would think of them (for example, we can't both talk about how it's only a matter of years that "white" will be a minority in the US and that that's a good thing _and also_ claim that reactionary concerns about replacement are wholly unfounded).
Good luck to you.
What?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement#The_Techn...
The agenda 2025 is eerily similar, including the proposed land grabs and a tech style governance by "elites".
Are these guys in some alt-universe where Musk and Theil are advocating against more H1Bs?
Or maybe they’re were fine with eugenics and racism but weren’t aware of his H1B smacks?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93q625y04wo
> He will be brought back," Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. "To err is human, to forgive divine."
Just ignore that’s not on him to forgive.
Will be interesting to see how people like to be Chile 2.0
Musk wants to normalize this kind of racism.
- "They're not that bad, they're just trolling people; they would never say racist things at me... They'll stop once they get into power."
After getting into power:
- "Oh... If only someone had warned me about this!"
Direct statements approving of wiping Gaza and Israel off the earth or disparaging Indian engineers pierce the veil of self-deception and force lukewarm supporters to acknowledge who they’re backing. It’s the same reason why they’re arguing that Musk threw a “Roman salute” hoping that the median voter doesn’t know as much about the Italian fascist movement.
Well, it seems these young men were chosen for qualities that should make them feel intimidated. It's our moral imperative as Americans to hold these people accountable, criminally accountable if necessary. If these men are promoting racist and un-American sentiments with the intention of not being caught, they are trying to fool the entire nation at once. Clearly that cannot persist.
Not paying for this. Please use some archive website if you are sharing selome article.
Vs ? what? a legal coup? or the other varietys like these agencies under scruteny fund worldwide?
[1] https://www.dhra.mil/portals/52/documents/perserec/adr_versi...
[2] https://doha.ogc.osd.mil/Industrial-Security-Program/Industr...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/07/elon-musk-asks-pentagon-for-...
After he did a $1 million lottery a day only for Registered Republicans, to bypass pay for registration laws, in a swing state during the election.. I'm guessing any leftovers of that will be lifted.
He won, but just.
Not that it matters. Serial violators of others' autonomy aren't know for coloring between the lines. Give them a femtometer and they take a light-year. And when you're a star, or president, they let you do it.
My understanding of troubles between people were that they were the historical norm. My country of birth, and all surrounding countries, have long interesting histories. Real ruins to match! Full of everyone and group vying for dominance with lots of periodic organized killing, at various scales, instigated by cultural waves and royal decree.
Every kind of group conflict over time. No reason to fixate and stew on any one. Certainly not any that “defined” the country. Just lots of mistakes.
No false pristine origin myth to wrap oneself up into! Dear Zeus no! What an odd idea!!
And the trend over hundreds of years clearly was one of steady improvement. Minus short term catastrophes.
So no need to continually revisit any particular mistake, or waste time downplaying one either.
When I arrived in the US, we didn’t have TV at my house. And we never did. So my sheltered historical interests continued to be global.
It’s quite remarkable how free my life was from any impact of US racism. I had heard of Martin Luther King. His memory was universally revered by my American family and wider circle. “Obviously” that little episode of slavery, contrasting with the thousands of years of interminable atrocities that were my context for judging such things, was well on its way out.
We had diverse neighbors, and everyone interacted. Lots of interesting adults taught me new things. I don’t remember anyone as being this or that, they were all just very different people, different looks, backgrounds, ideas. To me that is zen. Fun.
Somehow it took me quite a while to find out there were significant US people who were still quite racist. At age 10, I was confused by a conversation, and a friend told me there were still Americans with bad feelings about black people.
I tried to imagine what someone like that could be like? What would they look like? Why, most of all, why?!? No coherent form came to mind.
In the next few years I caught up on US history, or as we say everywhere else on the planet “current events”.
It was appalling to me that there were still small groups of white supremacists, operating mostly in the dark, That there were still people with quiet prejudices. But “obviously” those things were dying.
Today is absolutely unrecognizable. The level of self-reinforcing garbage just bewilders me.
Everything is argued from the most unworkable extreme. No DEI! (So no consideration for real talent in less easy to find places, or who might need a practical accommodation?) To DEI must be enforced, please sign on to our committees un-nuanced statement of diversity? (So no differences on quotas or approaches are ok?)
And the rest of us, including the diverse in question, left to muddle through all these moving barriers and the hate and depression they feed.
Total madness.
I feel like the US is in a tiny time pressure bottle, and a cultural pressure bottle too, isolated from healthy border contact with neighbors of comparable power. Cut off from most human history.
And the result is utter myopia.
Everyone (who talks loudly) thrashing around reacting to threats real, imagined and manufactured from paranoia or opportunism. In the process, making themselves credible threats to others.
I just feel lucky between my childhood elsewhere, lack of media, and early exposure to wider historical & geographic perspectives, that for a long time I was protected from the poison of US racism. I can tell you, it was a happier place to be.
I got to meet and know my adopted black cousin, along with other diverse people who were part of my amazing new large US family, without any thought of racism. For years.
I remember in my 30’s when I realized Prince was black! It was so ridiculous to just notice that I had to laugh. And then a whole bunch of other artists. Of course some artists struck me immediately as black for whatever reason. But I just didn’t think to classify people that way, for the longest time.
Whereas with businesses they could go out of business if they overspend on inefficient processes and there can be competition on both quality and price.
One of the root causes is that it's very difficult to fire government employees for bad performance so that's why government services suck and cost a lot in almost every level of the government and in pretty much every country with some exceptions, like say the NTSB in the US.
It's not even that low performers should all be fired, but the fact that knowing you it's hard to get fired leads to many people underperforming given natural psychology. The other problem being lack of incentives tied to performance.
I have not really seen more motivated people in business due to performance incentives. Even in the financial sector, other than maybe traders and quants, I can tell you most people don't work harder because of the annual bonus.
It was certainly a bit dispiriting working with the minority of people who appeared to do absolutely nothing and just hung around for years. We all knew we had to work harder because of them. Some of them would definitely have been fired in a business.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyregion/chan-china-nyc-i...
There's a word for achieving political ends via violence or the threat of violence. We should've been using that word heavily then, and we should be using it heavily now.
Our only hope is that the Cheeseburgers and high cholesterol gets the best of Trump.
And that Democrats grow a spine.
Cholesterol getting the best of Trump isn't going to derail this, since Vance is more than happy to continue the amassing of unchecked executive power.
"You won't have to vote again."
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Popehat%27s%...
Popehat's Law of Goats
He who fucks goats, either as part of a performance or to troll those he deems has overly delicate sensibilities is simply, a goatfucker.
"He claimed he was just pretending to be racist to trigger the social justice warriors, but even if he is telling the truth, Popehat's Law of Goats still applies."
If you're referring to Musk or the current administration, calling them names doesn't really seem to have worked for what, at least nine years now?
This is especially true if the courts roll over and reverse the Impoundment Act, which is exactly what the Project 2025 author and OMB nominee is pushing for. The president would be able to bankrupt any State, any entity that relies on federal funding, regardless of the wishes of Congress.
And arguably they could just do it: ignore any court judgment, and watch Congress do nothing. We know he won't ever be impeached and removed, so it's sort of a foregone conclusion that impoundment power can be seized at any time.
A core part of this sort of security is compartmentalization. A person who has "top secret" level clearance has it for specific subject matter. Their clearance is worthless if they're outside those boundaries.
"The President of the United States will be given access to any government or military information that they request, even if they would not otherwise be able to normally obtain a security clearance were they not the President."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_security_clearan...
Trump essentially granted Musk his presidential clearance. If Musk hits any resistance to classified information, Trump can just access it and hand it to Musk. If it's a crime to do so, Trump can declassify it, pardon Musk, or just instruct his DOJ not to charge him.
But no, there is no "all things included" security clearance.
And you're right, POTUS does not normally have access to tax returns information, per 26 U.S.C. § 6103:
https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-26-internal-revenue-code/...
Saying, "I don't like this therefore it's not in his power" is logically identical to seeing Congress pass a law that you don't like and saying, "this isn't in Congress' power"
Yes that's true ...and totally irrelevant.
Trump is NOT drawing money from the treasury. He is performing the executive function - specifically in this case finding fraud.
I did not claim that their concerns about replacement were well-founded, merely that they were understandable. Again, go back and read what I actually wrote: we cannot both acknowledge that there is a decline in the proportion of whites in America, that there are policies being pursued that help with this (again, no moral judgement, simply a statement of fact), and also that the people who are scared about losing majority status are completely without basis in their concerns.
If you cannot understand the tiny pier of truth that these people use as a foundation for the massive pile of other nonsense they've stacked (or had stacked) upon it, you will never be able to get them to change.
I'm not asking you to agree with them. I'm not asking you to say that the whole of their beliefs makes any sense at all.
I'm asking you to understand that they aren't pulling this completely out of thin air, and that if you want to have more success than you've had it may be worth it to acknowledge their concerns and try to show how your preferred policies would serve them better and how their current preferred bozos are manipulating them.
You and people like you might assert that they're idiots, misinformed, evil, or whatever else--but their vote counts as much as yours, sometimes moreso, and so you ignore or misunderstand them at your peril.
You see how quickly MAGA voters went from “America first. No foreign entanglements” to “let’s send troops to the Middle East to clear out Gaza” as soon as Trump said we should do so?
Anytime that Trump hasn’t been on the ballot since 2018, Trump voters stayed home.
Presidents have always been about personality and not policy. Biden and Bush I being the exception in my lifetime - or at least since Reagan.
This is why there's an effort to centralize power in the executive at a blistering pace, so the opposition can be permanently defeated even without Trump.
Watch for three things: ignoring the courts, snuffing out the influence of non-party sources of authority (the press, academic institutions), and centralization of police power. I don't think they're going to wait past April before they do all three.
I’m not saying another Republican will never win. But they will be your bland mostly inoffensive Republicans like Haley (2024), McCain, Romney, Bush I and II and Dole.
You might disagree with them on policy around the edges. But they won’t bring the destruction of Trump.
Desantis tries his best to be Trump and he flamed out marvelously on the stage. Even in Florida (where I live), he is losing his grip on the legislature.
I worry if it goes back to business as usual, it's just ripe for the next generation of con artists to show up and we'll go through this all over again.