The Doge Takeover Is Worse Than You Think
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This must have been cathartic for Mr Barrett. Hope he gets a good sleep now. :)
Or will Elon "declare victory" (like Bush did in Iraq) and goes back to interplanet colonization now that he's "fixed government"?
It's like one of those captivating TV shows where you can't wait to find out what happens in the next episode. Would be amusing and entertaining, except for the part that America is getting actually f*ed.
These actions have severe implications for the future of science and industry in this country.
And the cronyism is a blatant distortion of the free market – how is anyone supposed to compete to provide good service to the government, when the person issuing contracts is also selling services to the government. Just look at Verizon versus SpaceX and the FAA system.
I can understand why people don’t want to see this discussion here, especially users who aren’t American and thus aren’t directly affected. And I can understand not wanting to engage for ideological reasons, a feeling of helplessness, or simply an attitude that they don’t want to engage in politics.
Unfortunately, politics sometimes chooses to engage with us - regardless of what we want. A world where government contracts are not given to whoever can provide the best service, but rather to whoever will provide the largest kickback is a recipe for a future where the basic infrastructure we rely on doesn’t work.
We do have a voice here – we don’t need to simply accept that this is the state of affairs. If you’re concerned about this like I am, I encourage you to pick up a phone and call your representatives. It only takes 5 minutes. Congress has all the power to stop these conflicts of interests and demand that cuts are done in an accountable and responsible way.
I called mine and asked a few simple questions – what is Elon Musk doing in the government, why is he talking over the president in interviews, and why is he allowed to give contracts to companies he owns?
TBH from Europe I can sense already some news fatigue. US defaultism is palpable, especially considering that the US is perceived not as the biggest or most important - we are talking about 300mil people - but rather as the loudest, noisiest kid in the back of the room, which honestly isn't even that funny, interesting or brilliant.
I live in Ireland, and when I was a kid, the Taoiseach (PM), Charlie Haughey, who at the time was paid what would now be worth maybe 100k per year, mysteriously had his own island (turned out he was taking millions in corrupt payments, because of course). Over the next couple of decades, Ireland largely cleaned up the corruption, though Haughey himself largely escaped justice while he was alive (he spent much of his last decade in front of tribunals but kicked the bucket before they ended), suffering a sort of damnatio memoriae instead.
I'd always kind of thought of Haughey as the absolute epitome of modern developed world corruption, just comically blatant. Anyway, looks like this lot very much have him beat.
I do not have a subscription, but it might be one of those "you've reached X articles today" things, or else some ad-blocker or privacy feature (not-)helping.
But that's normal, there is no conflict of interest as he's not DOGE chief, Amy Gleason is. Why it was Musk then than run the first Cabinet meeting ? One has to wonder.
I'm at a loss of words frankly about what's happening in the USA. This Trump idea about selling citizenship for 5M$ may actually be good - you bet Russian Oligarchs are salivating - this kind of blantant corruption was hard to achieve even in the early post-URSS Russia.
If you need inspiration, try imagining how this debacle would be portrayed by US media if it happened elsewhere in the planet: a populist buffoon propped by and quickly funnelling government money to oligarchs.
"Banana republic", "third-world country" and "failed state" are adjectives that I've seen more than once in similar circumstances.
You must simply be mistaken, lbrito. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here.
Surprised they didn't mention Krasnov.
No concern about the $150B increase in military spending. No comments at all.
No concern about abandoning Ukraine to Russia after having invested hundreds of billions in military aid to keep Russia out of Europe.
No concern about the billions spent on fossil fuel subsidies.
Etc, etc…
But oh my gosh, someone spent a poomfteenth of a fraction of a percent on something that sounds “left wing” then BURN IT ALL DOWN!
I welcome government efficiency, and clearly some programs were stupid and wasteful. However, that’s clearly not what DOGE is about. They’re not looking into general waste or corruption. Instead they’re doing a drag-net operation and cancelling anything and everything with certain key words Musk doesn’t personally like.
Disagree? Name one program that DOGE has cancelled that was sponsored by someone on the right.
Just one.
It's not about "efficiency" or "the economy", it's about wrecking shit so bad the tech oligarchs can seize power. They're trying to make curtis yarvin's insane bullshit real.
There's a non-zero chance this is exactly what's going on, at least for an influential faction in the administration (there seem to be... a few factions, at least for now). Vance has alluded to Yarvin a couple times in interviews, and AFAIK Thiel's outright said he likes Yarvin's ideas. Not sure how Musk feels about the guy.
A decent news media would have hammered anyone connected to the campaign over that kind of thing, any time they got a chance. We don't have that, though.
That's the funniest thing about all of this. Bunch of red state farmers expected something in return for their vote. Can't just pay them directly, so instead their representatives pay them by sticking some pork in a bill that says USAID will pay farmers to grow soybeans. Same effect.
But now some koolaid drinker comes in, notices some money being sent to feed third world poor people, calls it woke nonsense and shuts it down.
But who does this end up hurting directly but the very people who voted for this to happen! They grew a bunch of beans the government doesn't want to pay for anymore, and they're out of luck. I guess you can call this waste, or even abuse, but definitely not woke.
More specifically, they're explicitly gutting every agency that tried to investigate him. "Let that sink in."
We know this is the case, but there's nothing you could say to them to believe it, they will just make up an excuse like "because we do things right, there is nothing to cancel." while blaming the left for ten dollar eggs.