Doge-affiliated employee expected to seek access to IRS system
nbcnews.com
nbcnews.com
Whatever is happening in Washington, it doesn't sound like the president's opponents are going to try to stop him, for now. It sounds like this will keep going.
This news cycle is going beyond anxiogenic like it was around 2017-18. I never know if I am witnessing something absurd or if it's the beginning of something serious.
I generally prefer to think that my anxiety is blowing things out of proportion. As any adult would say, I keep saying "it's going to be fine".
I am french, not american, so generally I am just more worried about NATO and Ukraine.
What opponents? The GOP that's been completely remade in the President's image? Or the Democrats that don't control any levers of power in Washington?
They are trying, but severely limited. The president has control over all 3 branches of government (including both halls of Congress).
The Democrats are failing at that, and it's wrong to say that's because they're actually powerless. They aren't. What they are is ineffective.
The democratic party is controlled opposition. Democrats, like Republicans, take in a ton of money from the donor class.
America is a capitalist nation, in capitalism, those with the capital get to reap the profits. The people with the capital therefore end up with more money, and they can use that money to donate to the political class. This causes the political class to become an instrument of the capital class, and the parties end up being marketing.
The goals of the democratic and republican parties both end up to serve capital. Republicans have an easier time since they have incorporated serving capital into their political platform. Democrats end up seeming ineffective because their messaging is that they are somehow taking most of their money from the capital class but are actually on the side of the labor class.
The capital class has the money, but the labor class has the numbers, both parties need the numbers because until we completely do away with democracy, people, not dollars, get to vote.
As the democratic party has become more and more captured by the capital class and their donations, they can no longer seek votes through advancing policies that would support the labor class by restraining the capital class (this would make their donors unhappy). The democratic party pivoted to trying to find a way to carve out least-bad pro-capital class reforms (things like public-private partnerships, school vouchers, etc), least-disruptive pro-labor class reforms (entrenching capital class insurance companies as some kind of improvement to healthcare, slow rolling minimum wage so they could have symbolic victories for keeping up with inflation, and then not even doing that), and more and more towards cultural issues that do not threaten the capital class (LGBTQ+ rights, DEI, etc).
Republicans have adopted populism and wedge issues politics to capture the labor class vote.
The reason the democrats are terrible opposition isn't because we've somehow elected the dumbest people imaginable, it's that they are pointing at a different goal. Their goal is to remain in the political class, to keep the donations of the donor class (which just happens to be the capital class) flowing, and if that class says "let the massive tax cuts for us play out, we don't care about the fallout" that's what they will do.
I don't think they have an incentive to. Better for them to sit back and watch trump break things so they can be the ones to (campaign to) fix it.
They just need to boo from the sidelines and hope for the worst.
The president has vast powers when it comes to the administration of the state. Democrats could impeach him but don't have the votes. They can use the courts and that's already being done.
Instead of claiming bad faith maybe you could tell us what you'd have the Democrats do.
Instead of limp statements by Schumer and the like taking about "bromances" and complaining about how Trump and Musk are executing their actions, maybe they could focus on what is being done and the actual substance and consequences of it.
It's politically safer for them to stop at the how. But their constituents care about substance, not dramatics. People are generally numb to this stuff, because we constantly hear each side attack the other relentlessly, like immature grade schoolers. It's noise that we've been programmed to tuned out.
I could be wrong and maybe the Democrats have pure intentions this one time, but if you don't believe that politicians root for the other team to fail, despite the negative consequences to the people they represent, then I'm afraid you may be the ignorant one.
It's weird though because it feels like with all the really "anxiogenic" stuff, I'm learning about it from HN, reddit, etc instead of actual legacy media.
For instance, they're doing the largest layoff in HISTORY right now with federal employees and the Eric Adams thing is the top story I'm seeing, etc.
It almost feels like ""MSM"" is glossing over the details to go more high-level "policy" news to make it seem like politics as "slightly" usual.
It's kinda wild that the most in-depth reporting on the DOGE takeover is coming from outlets like Wired and 404 when it seems like this SHOULD be an anxiogenic, huge, all-caps headline-style news cycle when it really doesn't read that way on any mainstream news outlet.
he's announcing his identity and belief system and making his criminal past part of his future so it all becomes meaningless
Combined with this quote, expect people to be disappearing soon, actually he technically has already erased certain classes of people on paper, so physically next is not a big step from there.
* https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/15b6c083feb...
That quote was made in week 4. There are over 200 more weeks to go.
What law is going to be too far when he's not running for re-election one way or another?
Overall I agree with your premise. There are certainly some safeguards already in place. But even those aren’t foolproof (e.g. an IRS employee leaked 45’s tax returns to NYT). The data is collected and it’s indexed in an automated retrieval system. Any barriers to that will inevitably be circumvented.
Like I'm not saying this isn't new to the US, and I'm not saying the Nordic models are perfect. But the hysteria in this comment is over the top, and allows others to dismiss why this is likely a bad idea without thinking.
As far as without oversight: not reporting the entire chain of command does not mean there isn't one. The employee needed certain security clearances to access the system, and they've been granted them (per TFA)
I think we agree on at least a few points though: Neither of us trust the current administration to actually vet who gets security clearance, to trust this is being done in good faith, to believe it will make a realistic difference in tax evasion (especially for the rich), that the time would not be better spent better financing the IRS, or that access will be used responsibly.
I don't think this is a good idea. But let's minimize the histronics and over-the-top language. There's lots to criticize without allowing detractors an easy win.
Dealing with PII was an overt part of their remit, as the Medicare system (written in COBOL) had substantial difficulties dealing with regulatory change, and it was to be modernized. As special government employees, they were 1) consultants not appointed through the regular process and 2) had widespread access to software systems and private data across the federal government. And yes, many of them were the age of current DOGE employees.
At its height, there were 700+ employees with varying levels of access like this.
Accessing PII is normal for federal contractors, even young ones. I worked on the maintenance database for the F-35 strike fighter when I was 23. There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people through the federal system and contractors with access to information like this.