ironically, it is really hard to read this stuff without coming to the conclusion that the author spends way too much time on a certain website staffed by nazis
Replies
You should, perhaps occasionally read the full piece instead of reacting to headlines.
aug 22, 2025, 10:02 pm • 9 0 • view
Is there anything of substance in the article that you want to stand behind? Did you read it?
aug 22, 2025, 11:50 pm • 7 0 • view
1) since it's long been known that a sizable majority people never read past the headline, it's maybe high time to start using headlines that actually agree with the article's text. 2) I remember that DOGE article. And it consistently reaffirmed that DOGE's mission was correct and that America's
aug 22, 2025, 10:11 pm • 8 0 • view
aid agencies/programs were massively inefficient money sinks. It was a bad article that completely failed to defend government programs.
aug 22, 2025, 10:13 pm • 6 0 • view
No; the article does not make any such arguments. Find me a section claiming that aid agencies are inefficient money sinks.
aug 22, 2025, 10:14 pm • 1 0 • view
Come on - what are you arguing here? DOGE was already targeting aid organizations when this was printed! Anyone decent reporter should know that; it’s the basic context of the piece. Saying “DOGE might be a good idea” in that context amounts to an endorsement of aid cuts.
aug 22, 2025, 10:18 pm • 11 0 • view
You should note that I said very clearly in my posts that I had. I confess that the second one is more of a stub adverting to a podcast which I haven’t listened to; but this stuff is terrible! It’s just patently false, as we all know now, having lived through DOGE for six months!
aug 22, 2025, 10:10 pm • 56 0 • view
What? How is anything in the screen shots false?
aug 22, 2025, 10:11 pm • 4 0 • view
What in it is true or smart? Hopelessly naive is the best interpretation and that would fully disqualify them already.
aug 23, 2025, 12:18 pm • 2 0 • view
I see little compelling evidence that government is terribly inefficient or wasteful, or that current entities like the GAO are insufficient. Especially enough to warrant embracing an obvious bad faith effort like DOGE/Musk
aug 22, 2025, 11:41 pm • 15 0 • view
Insofar as there is inefficiency, it is often caused by republicans themselves so teaming up with them or adopting their rhetoric seems self-defeating.
aug 22, 2025, 11:42 pm • 11 0 • view
By the way - here’s another thing that’s false: the interviewee in the RFK Jr piece directly implies that RFK Jr was radicalized by the COVID pandemic. This is absolutely not the case, as anyone who knows his history knows - it’s disproven by just looking at his Wiki page.
aug 22, 2025, 10:27 pm • 24 0 • view
One of the DOGE guys themselves famously got fired for admitting openly that there wasn’t nearly as much “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government than they thought! This is the kind of vague, insubstantial stuff said by politicos who don’t actually know much about how government functions.
aug 22, 2025, 10:13 pm • 30 0 • view
That doesn't address my question.
aug 22, 2025, 10:15 pm • 1 0 • view
You question was what was false. I said what was false: the claim that the government is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse.
aug 22, 2025, 10:20 pm • 10 0 • view
That's not in the screen shots above!
aug 22, 2025, 10:23 pm • 0 0 • view
It absolutely is! Did you actually read them? What on earth is “this inefficiency, this sludge” referring to if not to the claim that government is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse? What on earth else could it mean?
aug 22, 2025, 11:29 pm • 9 0 • view
... inefficiency?
aug 22, 2025, 11:34 pm • 0 0 • view
You’re quibbling about the difference between “inefficient” and “wasteful” now? The government is not, by really reasonable metrics, inefficient. And even if you disagree with that, it’s the premise of a discussion which makes no attempt to grapple with it.
aug 23, 2025, 12:23 am • 11 0 • view
- and it’s strategically just stunningly myopic for anyone to expect that DOGE would target the waste that DOES exist in government. We knew what they were aiming at in January - they weren’t secret about it! Anyone listening should have known they did not care about fraud.
aug 22, 2025, 10:14 pm • 18 0 • view
I see you quickly abandoned your "didn't read it" claim and have now moved on to being a baby brain.
aug 23, 2025, 2:49 pm • 0 0 • view
I think a lot of Democrats in the government and general federal orbiters have taken government reform seriously? Especially sectors which are pretty wasteful like the hard budget splits between contract work and bringing jobs in house.
aug 22, 2025, 10:24 pm • 34 0 • view
Like this is how the discussion is framed, and I think it's false both coming and going; taking the issue with how government HR and budgetary processes work is fairly normal in DMV circles on the left and I don't think the right actually does take this seriously at all, which DOGE basically proved?
aug 22, 2025, 10:28 pm • 30 0 • view
The interview actually does have nice insights into how we've tangled much of the internal processes into knots, although I think some like the overriding the EIS bits are overstated (I'd have to go look up the actual process at the time to confirm).
aug 22, 2025, 10:31 pm • 14 0 • view
The big issue is that it's framed in a way that is filled with magical thinking and wishcasting which doesn't seem attached to reality; there was no reason to believe Elon capable of any of these feats nor of the GOP doing a 180 on their attempts to make everything run worse.
aug 22, 2025, 10:31 pm • 29 0 • view
also like, i know people at 18F. they were getting rid of abuse waste and fraud! they fired them on like, month 1 of the admin
aug 22, 2025, 10:30 pm • 35 0 • view
by “energy” she meant “loud rhetoric.” there may be some political value to it, but in this case it was a transparent scam
aug 23, 2025, 1:33 pm • 3 0 • view
"Move the Overton window about government waste" by shredding public services, illegally firing tens of thousands of people, gutting vital services, and treating the federal government as if it's a plaything for bored, amoral skript kiddiez with ketamine addictions.
aug 23, 2025, 1:00 pm • 7 0 • view
I don't know if you've been living under a rock since January, but DOGE didn't find any inefficiency and instead cut jobs and services provided by the federal government to nearly nothing. There was no value to be had, Musk wasn't operating in good faith, as anyone could have predicted in November.
aug 23, 2025, 11:15 am • 24 0 • view
Which has nothing to do with the claims in the screenshots above.
aug 23, 2025, 11:41 am • 3 0 • view
Yes it does. 1. Musk announces DOGE to make government more inefficient 2. "It's good we're having this conversation" 3. Musk pulls the rug When the entire "conversation" was a lie and a distraction to allow Musk to dismantle the government, people who believed (2) are useful idiots
aug 23, 2025, 12:06 pm • 4 0 • view
"It's good that we're talking about wallet inspections, did you give your wallet to the wallet inspector yet? I'm so glad the wallet inspector started us talking about wallet inspections, we really needed to have this conversation." Anyone saying this is helping steal your wallet.
aug 23, 2025, 12:08 pm • 4 0 • view
It was not, in fact valuable to have the conversation
aug 23, 2025, 12:11 pm • 2 0 • view
I think it is fair to say that Demas frames the conversation as taking at least some of "The Right" at its word that it's serious about government efficiency, when in reality it is clear now that it was not.
aug 23, 2025, 11:51 am • 43 1 • view
Yeah I only read 20% and was frankly shocked, given the tone, that she breaks against it at the end, but also, 20% is enough of a chance imho
aug 23, 2025, 11:53 am • 10 1 • view
Like, it is now very funny to think back on how Libs were handwringing about Elon beating them to the punch on fixing derpy federal hiring forms when all Elon wanted was every person in the federal government to send him a daily email and to kill Africans with AIDS.
aug 23, 2025, 11:54 am • 42 2 • view
It was funny then but not like ha-ha funny more like 'oh I didn't realize so much of the press class is dangerously stupid and credulous'
aug 23, 2025, 11:55 am • 27 0 • view
If pundits weren't allowed to do "what if $stupididea was actually $betteridea" they'd be out of a job
aug 23, 2025, 12:03 pm • 34 5 • view
Tom Friedman Hardest Hit
aug 23, 2025, 1:08 pm • 5 0 • view
Another version of this is how Libs are like "oh no people are voting Republican because Libs have added too many environmental review steps to building new housing" and meanwhile Republicans are like "new housing would allow immigrants to move into our communities and eat our pets"
aug 23, 2025, 11:58 am • 46 5 • view
It’s important to keep in mind that Republicans are INOBYEs: In No One’s Backyard, Ever
aug 23, 2025, 12:16 pm • 3 0 • view
Ezra Klein: "look at this liberal beach community that is stopping wind farms from dotting its coastline" Donald Trump: "wind farms give the whales cancer and cause autism"
aug 23, 2025, 12:01 pm • 25 3 • view
your pretend naivete is incredibly goddamn grating
aug 23, 2025, 6:06 pm • 3 0 • view
Lmao, make a better case then!
aug 23, 2025, 6:11 pm • 2 0 • view
everyone else has explained to you the rhetoric at work in these pieces, which ofc you do already understand
aug 23, 2025, 6:13 pm • 1 0 • view
No everyone is just hallucinating that there is a secret message that is not actually in the text.
aug 23, 2025, 6:27 pm • 1 0 • view
Which is maybe true but is a remarkably silly argument.
aug 23, 2025, 6:27 pm • 0 0 • view
I always enjoy how this rendering of arguments of this type would have it that the arguments are really making no big point at all
aug 23, 2025, 6:38 pm • 0 0 • view
No, they are making pretty explicit points in the actual text.
aug 23, 2025, 6:38 pm • 0 0 • view
you're a mark, an idiot, or evil, which is it?
aug 23, 2025, 5:43 am • 5 0 • view
If there has been any serious governmental reform in recent years it is not by the Republicans or Trump or DOGE. You should know budget cuts are if anything the opposite of reform. Budget savings may result *from* reform, but reform itself costs money. The screenshots are absolute bullshit.
aug 23, 2025, 11:06 am • 3 0 • view
You can’t deal with bad faith actors on the “merits” of what they’re saying. You don’t “gotta hand it to them”
aug 23, 2025, 11:19 am • 7 0 • view
Her piece was fine but coming on here going “Hurr durr bet you leftists will be big mad” is her wanting the rage bait so she can sell clout to the right
aug 22, 2025, 10:20 pm • 7 0 • view
lol
aug 22, 2025, 10:59 pm • 2 0 • view
White bald dipshit defends woman supporting Nazi website, tracks
aug 24, 2025, 12:11 am • 0 0 • view
Maybe, but also I'm not going to try McDonald's new McShitter
aug 22, 2025, 10:10 pm • 5 0 • view
my theory that only the stupidest of bitches get to run liberal magazines continues to be vindicated
aug 22, 2025, 9:58 pm • 7 0 • view
The Atlantic dot com? Seriously, it's a Vichy publication and Demsas is less bad than many of its other writers
aug 22, 2025, 11:46 pm • 2 0 • view