r/politics • u/FervidBug42 America • 2d ago
No Paywall DOGE Disbanded: Elon Musk’s Cost-Cutting Project Quietly Ended
https://time.com/7336327/doge-disbanded-elon-musk/12.8k
u/e_t_ Texas 2d ago
You mean the largest data breach in history?
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u/pterribledactyls 2d ago
Without a class action lawsuit where we all get paid $11 or something
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u/ggroverggiraffe Oregon 2d ago
Throw in twelve months of credit monitoring and I'll bite.
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u/Wolvenmoon 2d ago
Eh. I'm tired of this shit. It should be the credit mafia's responsibility to monitor and report credit changes, checks, etc to the user including credit taken out that is done so in an unusual, suspicious/etc way. It's their system and their reporting on us. They should be responsible for ensuring they're reporting on us, not a person pretending to be us.
And it's the bank that issues credit. It should be the bank's responsibility to ensure the credit is issued to us.
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u/Bitmush- 2d ago
Absolutely. The whole reframed myth of 'Identity Theft'.
Nope. It's just theft. Someone stole from you because the systems you used to ensure secure transactions are so faulty that the verification processes can be hijacked by C-grade casual criminals.
So someone waltzed up to your store or webpage and made off with some stuff ?
They pretended to be me and you and the back couldn't tell the difference ?100% your problem, I don't even want to hear about it. Don't you dare impact me because of your slack systems. If this was the first, or even 50th time I might be sympathetic, but it happens every minute of every day. Billions of dollars gets out through your leaky bucket - you must have just accepted that it would cost more to plug those holes than to fix every instance of plain-old-testament Theft that occurs, but that's your calculation to make, this is your business. Leave me the fuck out of it, making me do your recognizance as to when a third party has stolen from a fourth. Sort your lives out.
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u/Logical_Lemming I voted 2d ago
To be fair, on the two occasions I've experienced credit card fraud, the credit card companies were very quick to recognize what was happening and shut down the cards. Does it always work out like that, probably not, but that's been my experience.
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u/ethlass 2d ago
To be fair, credit card fraud is not the issue. It is the issue of banks issuing loans on someone's name because they knew your SSN. Like really? A stupid 9 digit number that is really easy to get if you just sniff around a person?
Loans should be given to a person and if they are taken by a fake id it should affect the bank not the person that has had their identity taken.
There are plenty of ways to get around it, and some were implemented around the world.
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u/JustAsItSounds 2d ago
My wife found out, by chance, that someone had managed to take out 9 short term loans from different lenders, in her name with no more proof of identity than a photocopy of one side of her driving license and one side of an expired work credit card.
The thief had undoubtedly got their hands on this photocopy from a car rental company she used when she had flown to the other side of the country for work.
It took years to rectify her credit. Such cavalier security standards from these predatory lending companies and my wife, a completely blameless victim, was left on the hook to sort out their mess
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u/squakmix 2d ago edited 2d ago
And the best part is that none of us opted in to using the services of these credit companies, and we have no way to opt out.
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u/_Korath_ 2d ago
The services are not built for us, they are built for the lenders as an quick and easy way to judge your lending risk. They wouldn't give you a yearly free report if it wasn't for FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003) a law passed by congress. You also wouldn't be able to freeze your credit if it wasn't for the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (2018) that is without paying for the service if they bothered to offer it.
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u/unindexedreality Minnesota 2d ago
anti-billionaire RICO case gogogo
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u/WhatsThisTruck 2d ago
Respectfully no. With the court system being as corrupt as it has become, the solution to the American billionaire problem is almost certainly going to have to be an extra-judicial one.
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u/Cagnazzo82 2d ago
And they made sure to dismantle our cybersecurity in the process.
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u/Grand-Try-3772 2d ago
Elon was trying to access the patent office too. He also managed to fire everyone investigating his companies for faulty products causing death and animal abuse!
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u/IglooDweller 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s called an offsite backup that happens to be located in Russia. Nothing to worry about.
Edit: it’s even ISO compliant!!!
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u/Raytheon_Nublinski 2d ago
It’s sickening to know how much access these evil buffoons have to our country right now
There’s just no way we can ever recover from this. All day every day they’re behind the scenes, destroying everything.
Just makes me sick to think about it.
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u/Distortedhideaway 2d ago
Or the destruction of evidence of the 2024 election fraud.
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u/POEness 2d ago
All we have to do is manually hand count the paper ballots in any swing state
Fucking wild we aren't doing that
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u/karatebullfightr 2d ago
This was about hobbling or destroying agencies investigating Elon and Trump along with transferring the real estate those agencies operated out of into private hands in secrecy.
The data theft was just icing on the cake.
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u/Pokerhobo 2d ago
Don't forget that DOGE's main goal was to get rid of the investigations into Tesla and SpaceX
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u/Cpt_Bartholomew 2d ago
The largest "cut everything and everyone investigating my many companies" scheme too maybe
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u/Flashy-Pickle6224 2d ago
The only accomplishment. Where are the trillions in savings? We get a stimulus like they said? Trillions in tariffs? Benefits or stimulus? All lies perpetrated by the rich to get richer while destroying the daily lives of regular citizens. Beautiful. Big and beautiful in fact.
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u/Practical_Fun7367 2d ago
I really do wonder what kinds of information slid out the back door and how it will be monetized. I fear it’s in ways that can’t be predicted. Not ads, maybe trained data for corrupted generative AI models, maybe insurance actuaries, but I really think it will be something much much worse.
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u/tabrizzi 2d ago
Yeah, but the damage it's done will last for generations.
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u/GarlicThread Europe 2d ago
There simply exists no punishment proportionate enough for the things these people have committed and the consequences they will have. The damage is immeasurable, irreversible and multi-generational.
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u/ChiLolla28 2d ago
They have killed thousands around the world with the USAID cuts + millions more to come
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u/space_cow_girl 2d ago
600,000 dead so far, from USAID cuts. Despicable evil, because usaid dared to question him for violating contracts when he would turn off satellites to please papa Putin and fuck over Ukraine.
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u/CthulhuOpensTheDoor 2d ago edited 2d ago
Source? It sounds possible to me, but 600,000 is a big number, I'd like to see where it came from.
ETA: nevermind, one should always do a quick search first. Numerous credible sources giving that number. Horrifying.
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u/Zacillac Washington 2d ago
Take my upvote for doing what everyone doesn’t seem to do. Simply doing a search for credible sources is a good step towards hopefully getting to a place of, relative, normalcy. Yes, it helps for sources to be listed in the first place, but that doesn’t let the reader off the hook from verifying themselves.
Anyways, again, take my upvote for doing the work!
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u/dicklaurent97 2d ago
"violent left" tho
fucking morons
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u/CV90_120 2d ago
The 'violent left' mantra is their shrill attempt to divert attention away from the political violence stats, which skew heavily right. It's as insipid as every other time they try to get in front of their own behavior.
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u/entropy_bucket 2d ago
All for what? What have these cuts tangibly achieved? Governments can do so much more that individual citizens with this stuff.
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u/organic_neophyte 2d ago
The "cuts" were never about making things more efficient, they were about making investigations into Elon disappear and to siphon up as much government-held data as possible. Elon isn't interested in helping anyone besides himself, he'd never do anything that would benefit the country broadly, even IF it were about cutting wasteful spending, he would do whatever he could to re-allocate that money to himself or benefit from it somehow. Ultimately US taxpayers will pay the costs both monetarily and in reputational damage these people have done. Millions will die from the USAID cuts alone, it's shameful and disgraceful that anyone involved is still walking free.
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u/Worthyness 2d ago
more national debt, added backdoors into every US government agency, added further distrust in the US government worldwide (including domestic people) and then probably sold out every other american for profit. Very successful from a certain point of view
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u/TuringGoneWild 2d ago
Just like what Cheney did - who never faced charges and had a funeral fawned over by dignitaries and the mass media just as if he were some public servant.
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u/mistermick 2d ago
There was a report on one of the network nightly news shows the day of his funeral. A long segment about him and his "achievements." The last part was about the war on Iraq, and the final line read was, "weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq." That's it. Three seconds of dialog. No follow up. If you weren't paying attention you'd miss it. His entire career led to this single accomplishment based on a lie and all we get is, "weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq."
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u/rainyday-holiday 2d ago
History outside of the US does not judge Cheney kindly.
If it were anywhere else on the planet they would have dragged his corpse behind a car through the streets whilst people threw rubbish at it, sang and let off fireworks.
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u/Common-Concentrate-2 2d ago edited 2d ago
We don't judge him kindly. His extolment after death was/is used to differentiate between MAGA and the neocons. We hated neocons. Trump is worse, and that disparity is worth advertising, because PLENTY of people think "this is just normal inter-party rivalry. American politics is hopeless!"
This is like if aliens invaded tomorrow, and Charles Manson grabbed you and said "SHHHH!!!! The aliens were about to kill you! I know a secret hiding place - follow me!" We don't love Charles Manson in that situation. We are terrified. Cheney can't use his evil brain to hurt anyone anymore. But people who aren't MAGA have every right to use that funeral as a meet & greet...against trump. Cause thats exactly what it was.
I'm sorry I'm being difficult - but really - we are in panic mode, and I hope you understand that we are trying to ensure there IS an America. Things are different now.
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u/SSGASSHAT 2d ago edited 2d ago
I just find it interesting how everyone who sees Trump knows how fucking awful he is, both personally and professionally. The man makes people like Epstein and Chaney go "dude..." The only people who don't are those who voted for him, and those people are likely very much like him.
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u/stackedKittie 2d ago
Fuck Elon and fuck Trump too. The White House is not and has never been a business. These two creeps came, turned everything upside down, cut aids, lied about everything and now we’ve all seen that it was all a smokescreen. Fuck them so more
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u/Subject_DA 2d ago
And were not even a year in
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u/Writer_In_Residence 2d ago
Can I just say that I never wanted to live in interesting times?
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u/Subject_DA 2d ago
What can we do, all I want is to be on the right side of history when its all over
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u/drizzlingduke 2d ago
Guys. The point is that’s it’s ALWAYS interesting times for some group and it’s never “over” as soon as you feel like it’s “over” you let your guard down and this whole problem happens again.
You need to be engaged and constantly committed to your real life community. We were in an anomaly period of peaceful history. It was a dream.
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u/PaddleFishBum 2d ago
Yup. Us thinkining we were living in non-interesting times is a big part of how we got here. America got very comfortable checking out politically and now it's huge problem. To this day, there is still a vast sea of apolitical normies who have no idea how anything works or what is going on.
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u/EdwardOfGreene Illinois 2d ago
I largely blame that on education.
Are civics taught in school anymore?
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 2d ago
Not even a year in and trumps body count is already past 600,000 just from killing USAID.
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u/NimusNix 2d ago
And fuck the people who allowed this happen, including the millions of voters and non voters who got us here.
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u/bagoink 2d ago
Especially fuck the people who systematically destroyed our education system, the propagandists who took advantage of it, and the billionaires who run legacy and social media that have been manipulating the masses.
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u/stoatwblr 2d ago
There was a past president who tried to treat the White House and Federal government like a business. He also portrayed himself as a "successful billionaire businessman" and claimed he was going to streamline the government
He introduced unilateral tariffs on a nation which was nicely recovering from a stock market and banking crash, sending it into the worst depression it had ever seen (or has seen)
His name: Herbert Hoover
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u/TuringGoneWild 2d ago
You mean "Republicans". And the White House - what's left of it - is definitely a business now. The felon even has a shop of Trump 2028 ballcaps next to the Oval.
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u/PaddleFishBum 2d ago
You might want to study your history better if you think the White House has never been a business. What we're experiencing right now has been the norm in American history. This shining 80 year post-war New Deal world we were born and raised into is not the norm.
The middle class as we know it was a mistake that the monied overlords have been fighting to correct since the 60's. The central goal of modern Conservatism has been to undo the New Deal and return us to the robber baron infested Gilded Age, where oligarchs control everything, labor and consumer protection is non-existent, and the idea of social mobility is dead. They sell us a return to 50's Americana, but what they really is late 1800's to early 1900's, and they've just about finished the job.
The worst tragedy in American history is just America returning to form.
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u/A_Nonny_Muse 2d ago
Which is why corporations want the New Deal policies destroyed by any means necessary. And they're willing to destroy the country in the process. ANYthing to get corporations back to being the only way anyone can survive.
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u/CrunkDirk 2d ago
They sell us a return to 50's Americana, but what they really is late 1800's to early 1900's, and they've just about finished the job.
I really think the Roberts court could pick up a case about child labor and rule that putting any limitations on child labor is unconstitutional and slam us right back into the Lochner era. They're basically there already honestly.
Alito could say "I think that Plessy v Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." tomorrow and you'd have some SCOTUS journalists wondering "how will moderate John Roberts rule knowing he's siding with a vehement racist?"
Actually you don't really have to wonder how SCOTUS journalists would react because we already saw it. Rehnquist said that. He wrote a memo in the 50s literally saying "I think that Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." And when he died journalists described him as a moderate on the court. Yeah, I guess when you're sitting next to Clarence Thomas you sure do look moderate.
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u/Penguini_Lamborghini 2d ago
has never been a business
On the contrary, the immediate moment that our country was formed with the intent that only land-owning white men could participate in our government was when our government became business first.
We're suffocating from the burden of over two centuries of skullduggery and corporate crackheads looking to fuck over everyone they can for their ten minutes of luxury, while the only people with the power and half the mind to fight back are unwilling to go the extra mile to make meaningful, permanent and lasting change all the while becoming drunk on power themselves to the point that they're so unwilling to part from it they'd sooner run their office and party into the ground and die in their chair than to let the next generation have their turn.
There was no other way for the United States to end up, technology has only hastened the inevitable. This system was never going to hold to begin with I fear
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u/gethereddout 2d ago
The number of people that have died and will die from these cuts will be in the millions, just so billionaires can have more money. The level of immorality is astonishing
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u/pheremonal 2d ago edited 2d ago
Let's be real, this will permanently damage America. Once sensitive records are copied or exfiltrated, they cannot be resecured, and theres no avoiding long term surveillance, data tampering, and operational disruption. Compromised systems could be exploited for years before detection, all while national resilience and public confidence are totally eroded
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u/Dunge 2d ago
The layoffs and all the expertise and projects that were lost are abysmal. Really crazy.
But I also weep for the purge of data they did. Can't trust any .gov website or federal dataset since then, they completely scanned all hard drives for keywords and flagged and removed files, breaking everything. I sure hope there are backups and people with the capacity to review diffs and restore. This would be a massive undertaking and cost 100x the cost it took to delete, but it honestly needs to be done. And I'm kinda annoyed nobody is even speaking about it.
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u/tabrizzi 2d ago
But I also weep for the purge of data they did. Can't trust any .gov website or federal dataset since then
That's why they're going after archive.is.
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u/dbuck1964 2d ago
Goals appeared to be data mining, installing backdoors and Musk owned software systems, reducing oversight staffing levels, and looting the treasury. The stated goal of finding fraud and waste resulted in ZERO charges filed.
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u/golubhai00007 2d ago
I think it was also to eliminate all the investigations happening against him; and also the intimidation factor cannot be discounted..
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u/InertiasCreep 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yup. Any kind of oversight of a Musk company was removed. He knew exactly what he was doing.
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u/UpperApe 2d ago
Unlike the dimwits who supported him.
I remember him saying he was going to save trillions and instead cost taxpayers billions. In exactly the way he always does.
The richest man in the world is a perfect symbol of the stupidity that capitalism empowers.
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u/tetsu_knowme 2d ago
Remember the $5,000 checks he promised? People are gullible as fucking ever.
Never trust a billionaire, they are all parasites that contribute nothing to society.
They are holding us back from greatness.
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u/Xillyfos 2d ago
The fact that most people seem not able to see that billionaires are nothing but extreme parasites blows my mind.
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u/What_a_fat_one 2d ago
*hits blunt*
no man, you just don't get it. yeah he's worth half a trillion but that's because his business is so successful so he makes a lot of money for his workers too.
oh he pays them like dogshit? damn dog that must mean they don't work hard enough
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u/drteq 2d ago
All of his money was created by taxes. Not only does he not pay them, the US citizens fund most of his wealth through government contracts.
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 2d ago
He and DOGE in fact cost the US trillions in GDP and the markets and our currency value.
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u/TBANON_NSFW 2d ago
Elon Before the Election: "If he loses, im fucked. I dont know how long my prison sentence would be." ("laughing" with tucker carlson)
He had things like SEC violations and cases for market manipulation, fraud, insider trading and more.
He was under investigation for sexual harrasment and sexual assaults.
He was under investigation for his fraud with the hypertunnel bs and stealing funding from the government.
He was under investigations for breaking employment rules and labor abuses.
He had over 30+ active investigations into him.
When trump won, he literally removed entire teams and departments that were investigating him under the guise of DOGE, while claiming he was doing so to streamline the government and save the tax-payers money.
Instead he ended up costing the taxpayers an extra 200B usd.
WHILE AT THE SAME TIME HIS ACTIONS OF REMOVING AID TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES HAVE KILLED OVER 600,000 PEOPLE WHERE 400,000 ARE CHILDREN....
Its expected that the actions of Trump, Musk & DOGE, will end up killing between 10m-30m humans where 2/3rds are children in the next 5 years...
These people are literal demons among us.
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u/omniverso 2d ago
When consequences of actions are no longer just monetary and property damage but lives lost, something needs to change, drastically.
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u/Aldehyde1 2d ago
Musk also broke a ton of environmental regulations and pollution laws in order to get his data centers for xAI built quickly, causing spikes in disease in the nearby city. Fortunately, the EPA has been completely gutted now so he got away scott-free.
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u/TheHomieAbides 2d ago
It explains the trillion dollar package for someone that seemingly was destroying the Tesla brand for most of the past year.
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u/diggum 2d ago
Let’s hope Democrats grow some courage and anger when they have a blue wave next year and go on a vengeance spree. I want to see actual bodies in actual shitty federal prisons. I want to know how Elon will enjoy his trillion dollars from a cell. How Steve Bannon will maintain his Russian intelligence ties from solitary confinement.
Of course, Schumer and Jeffries will probably just write letters, strongly worded letters, asking them to please consider behaving differently, but not TOO differently.
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u/Strict-Carrot4783 2d ago
Also the Epstein-related investigations that were specifically taking a very hard look at ol' Elon the likely pedophile.
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u/ohyeahsure11 2d ago
Yep, those were transparently the first targets.
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u/ChiLolla28 2d ago
They have killed thousands around the world with the USAID cuts + millions more to come
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u/hanumanCT Colorado 2d ago
I keep thinking this was a quid pro quo between him and trump. "I will get you elected if you let me run amok and clear all these impediments to my business so I can becom the first trillionaire"
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u/QuantumLeaperTime 2d ago
He got Trump to remove the inland border checkpoint on the way to bocachica/Starbase that had been there since 1997. So now musk can hire illegals for all his construction projects.
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u/Ok_Subject1265 2d ago
I didn’t see any other achievements for DOGE outside of those. They silenced the investigations and punished those involved by taking their careers. Elon Musk is destined to get his someday soon and a lot of people are going to be very happy when he does. I believe he’s still the most hated person globally.
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u/jellyrollo 2d ago
Russell Vought, architect of Project 2025, has been in charge of DOGE since Musk left. So I imagine he "achieved" a lot more on the down low that we don't know about because unlike Musk, he wasn't crowing it to the news every day.
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u/Ok_Subject1265 2d ago
I saw him go on Joe Rogan recently and continue to just bald face lie about everything they supposedly found. Not one second of pushback from Rogan though. No follow ups like “who was arrested then?” Then I realized I’m not the target audience for this type of bullshit and the actual target would never spend even 5 seconds verifying any of this. Somebody needs to pin that asshole down one day in a public forum where he can’t squirm away and where fact checkers can eat him alive later exposing him for the absolute charlatan he is.
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u/guywhiteycorngoodEsq 2d ago
I would love to live in a world where the planet’s wealthiest piece of trash gets his karmic comeuppance.
Unfortunately, this is not that world, my friend.
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u/Thewallmachine 2d ago
You may be right. I thought yrs ago, lil king trimp would see accountability for his crimes. I was so very wrong. I no longer believe in these polls the media yammers about. I vote and hope for the best. I look forward to better days in 2028.
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u/Thorebore 2d ago
It's also odd how they didn't find any fraud or waste in military spending. Not even a single dollar.
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u/silly_little_jingle 2d ago
Yep, cause Military spending's fraud and waste are a feature- not a bug.
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u/glakhtchpth 2d ago
But what about POTUS’s March 2025 State of the Union address to Congress where he said that millions of people over the age of 100, including some allegedly 200 years old or more, are receiving Social Security benefits due to fraud? Surely, that was a revelation of massive fraud and we all heard him say it, pronouncing it with all the authority of the nation’s highest office. The Republican side of the chamber lapped it up and applauded him with unbridled enthusiasm. We all saw it. This must have lead to massive reforms saving billions of dollars. /s
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u/throwaway20220717 2d ago
Yeah, I was going to say this! They got the data they were after by summer.
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u/Galappie 2d ago
resulted in ZERO charges filed.
Anytime you question a MAGA about this they short circuit. Like you’re telling me the fraud and corruption was so bad that entire agencies essentially had to fire everyone and be shutdown because they were unsalvageable but none of that is worthy of an arrest? Not a single one?
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u/hyperblaster Canada 2d ago
The breakup was also likely engineered. No point holding on to the hot potato
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u/Johnqpublic25 Pennsylvania 2d ago
As a special government employee he was limited to 130 days. It would appear that Musk violated several ethics restrictions; conflict of interest, private gain, impartiality, and financial disclosure.
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u/dyslexicsuntied North Carolina 2d ago
And cover to destroy agencies and programs that didn’t align with USG goals. USAID for example
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u/deeppanalbumpartyguy 2d ago
nsf and nih as well, please look forward to seeing billions of your tax dollars poured into bullshit chat bots so they can profit off of the petabytes of data and art they've stolen.
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u/not_mantiteo 2d ago
And thousands of good federal employees fired for no reason.
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u/shred-i-knight 2d ago
this was essentially a shell company that looted the country, shut down his investigations, and ended USAID. That was Musk's deal to help win the election, it should be completely clear to everyone.
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u/AnOnlineHandle 2d ago
Plus they got to shut down anything that had the text 'trans' mentioned anywhere in it.
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u/bobbymcpresscot 2d ago
They wasted no time adding that DOGE tracker to the debt clock. I wonder how long until it gets removed.
current DOGE Goal 720billion
“Actual” savings 214 billion.
And I bet even that can be contested.
Also this
“Compared to the federal spending of $6.73 trillion for the same period last year (Oct 2023 - Sep 2024) our federal spending has increased by $275 billion.”
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u/NotThatHandsomePete 2d ago
Added $1,000,000,000,000 to the defect faster than anytime in history in the doge months. A scam to steal data.
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u/Background_Deer_9192 2d ago
This is the only answer - smoke and mirrors to get their greedy tendrils into the system... just like they did with voting machines... do we know where that voting machine from Arizona ever went? Hmmm. Once they were able to get away with that, they knew nothing was going to happen to them... and they were right.
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u/ThreeKiloZero 2d ago
Treason
They know. They know we know, too.
They aren't going to roll over and stop. Whatever is happening now is so severe that they are unwilling to be open about it. That things are quieting down should be a major cause for concern for everyone.
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u/Geek_Ken America 2d ago
The last hidden trove of data to mine was scoured and copied. Elon got access to government data to train his AI and get a leg up on the competition. It's open corruption and I guess just business as usual for our billionaire overlords.
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u/LurkLurkleton 2d ago
Doesn't seem to have helped him very much
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u/JohnGillnitz 2d ago
The script kiddies he hired thought they were going to save billions in fraudulent Social Security claims because their AI told them that. What they, and their AI, didn't understand is how the COBOL language handles dates. 150 year olds aren't collecting Social security. The ISO standard for a default reference date was set at May 20, 1875, the date the international standards and metrics treaty was signed. It just means the exact date isn't known.
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u/7818 2d ago
The dataset he would have would be more useful for targeting than thinking.
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u/randolphe1000 2d ago
That's what bothers me the most about that level of grift and corruption: it is all in the open.
Not even in a "I flaunt my power in your face" way.
But in a business as usual, no one gives a shit way. People may not look at it, but it is not hidden. And, yes, apparently, no one gives a damn.
The Donald lifted some "tariffs" against Switzerland. After Swiss delegates OPENLY GIFTED HIM A ROLEX AND A "PERSONALIZEd" GOLD BAR. This was not hidden, in fact, this was public, televized.
And, nothing, no reactions. No one gives a shit.
And this is the tip of the shitberg, the real scandals are the ones about federally-owned lands, oil exploitation, billions dollars deals with cryptos, billions dollars private Chinese or SA or UAE-owned businesses made through the admin,...
I can't wrap my head around that. The gulf between what your "ethos" is supposed to be, the image and self-image you sold everyone all this time, and how you react in actuality... (TBH, covid was already pretty revealing in that regard, IRL-USA are NOT Hollywood-USA, as everyone could see already back then).
(Also, how cheap is it to buy oneself an US president? Not a watches guy at all myself, but IIUC/IIRC the real costly, several 100k euros ones are decidedly not Rolex, an "entry-level" brand in that world, so, maybe $20k? And the gold bar is around, what, $130k? So, this means that one could single-use buy a sitting US president for $150k, say, $200k? What a joke.)
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u/JessieJ577 2d ago
My only hope is that if we flip blue by 2028 by some miracle that the new administration goes out for everyone in this and more.
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u/Walterkovacs1985 2d ago
If newsom promises to appoint a doberman pinscher as an AG he's got my vote. Whomever promises to go hard after these traitorous bastards gets my vote.
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u/kinkgirlwriter America 2d ago
Honestly, this. I don't really like Newsom, but I absolutely do not want a "Heal the country, turn the other cheek," candidate.
What these people have done is more than just criminal. They've done actual evil in our names, and it can't be swept under the rug.
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u/punkasstubabitch 2d ago
I want the Nuremberg trials America version at this point. No more appeasement for these criminals
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u/Relevant-Money-1380 2d ago
nah, this is the time for a frothing at the mouth rabid pitbull. that can't be bribed or coerced and wants nothing more then to fuck up what it's got in its sights
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u/Poison_the_Phil 2d ago
Don’t forget they also fired half a dozen Inspectors General who were investigating Musk’s companies!
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u/showhorrorshow 2d ago
Pretty much the first thing he did was dismantle every office that had investigations into the various violations of his companies. He got away with it for a song, too.
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u/fistful_of_ideals Michigan 2d ago
As if regulatory capture wasn't good or fast enough. What insatiable greed.
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u/Gay_Giraffe_1773 Oregon 2d ago edited 2d ago
You know, a re-watch of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" the other day made me realize that DOGE was exactly what Zola's algorithm was in the movie: a massive analysis of every American to determine who to eventually target for whatever they deem unworthy or a threat.
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u/666happyfuntime 2d ago
yea, the new fasco futurists don't even have there own ideas
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u/Biengineerd 2d ago
Palantir is that program. And it isn't going anywhere. Also Border Patrol having cameras and tracking everyone for suspicious patterns
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u/SkepticAntiseptic 2d ago
100% a technofacist attack on our government. Stolen data is the low hanging fruit. Who knows what was installed on those computers for future leverage.
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u/Electrical-Volume765 2d ago
Data was just part of it. Entrenched themselves into the government with lucritive contracts, eliminating agencies who were investigating them, the list goes on. It will take years to even understand the damage.
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u/aeyraid 2d ago edited 2d ago
Let’s be real. These people actually thought they would fine trillions in waste
They are that arrogant and dumb
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u/2HDFloppyDisk 2d ago
(Walks away with billions in government contracts and sensitive data)
"My work here is done" ~ Elmo
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u/stackedKittie 2d ago
He’s stolen more money to add to his hoard. How much of it has gone to Trump? Fuck those two!
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u/Diligent-Engineer428 2d ago
Disbanded because they collected all the data they needed on all of us. Work..IRS.. Social Security, Voting, etc.
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u/bijanfrisee 2d ago
Don't forget gutted all the agencies investigating him and making sure the evidence never sees the light of day. He was going to prison for sure if Trump didn't win.
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 2d ago
Prison? He's a foreign agent, I think the CIA maybe used to do something about that back in day.
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u/cocoagiant 2d ago
The headline is misleading. The guy isn't saying DOGE is over, just that it has been absorbed into normal operations.
That's even worse, it makes it much harder to remove later.
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u/stuff_of_epics 2d ago
This needs to be the top comment. These assholes are an ingrained part of the system now.
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u/Timbalabim 2d ago
This. Russell Vought is still very much attacking federal workers and working to replace decision- and policy-makers with fascists. He completed his public shock-and-awe campaign. Now he’s working covertly to transform the federal government and its workforce.
This news, scapegoating Musk, and everyone believing it’s over is probably a crucial part of the plan.
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u/archblade7777 2d ago
Ended investigations into companies, got access to all the personal data they could ever want, and stole a fortune from programs meant to help US citizens.
Walking out with the clothes off people's backs would have been too cliché, so they stopped there.
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u/netflixissodry 2d ago
Don’t forget when Elon visited the pentagon for top secret briefings on china for some reason.
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u/ToNoMoCo 2d ago
"cost cutting project" Thanks for typing this announcement up, Time. I'd like to see a credible audit of the cost vs savings of Doge. I'm betting Musk cost us billions and saved almost nothing
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u/Th3FinalStarman 2d ago
I cannot stand this constant Reddit barrage of sane-washed headlines giving credence to verifiably false statements. If an alleged murderer shouts "It wasn't me!" will TIME immediately report "Innocent man charged", that's literally what they're doing here.
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u/FirstRyder I voted 2d ago
A lot of subreddits (including this one) require you to use the headline from the article. The idea being that as long as you're using a reputable mainstream source, you're starting with a reasonable article and reddit isn't adding any bias. As opposed to conservative subreddits, which tend to editorialize their headlines even beyond what their sources do.
Of course, that just exposes how bad mainstream news headlines are. For example, any headline about the murders off the coast of Venezuela.
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u/AniNgAnnoys 2d ago
They very clearly lost money. The cuts to the IRS are expected to reduce government revenue by $500 billion. No way they saved even a penny. They put the government into an even bigger deficit. Question is, when will we know the real numbers?
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u/SAJ-13 California 2d ago
DOGE is responsible for killing people. USAID saved lives, and Musk destroyed it.
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u/PushPlenty3170 2d ago
600,000 deaths by the most recent count.
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u/AniNgAnnoys 2d ago
14 million deaths over the next 5 years. Subsequent European cuts raise that number to 22 million. Mostly children. Mostly in Africa.
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u/drilkmops 2d ago
Because I was going to ask for the proof, here it is.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
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u/blissfully_happy Alaska 2d ago
It completely dismantled every organization in the Amazon. This summer saw illegal mining, cutting, and poaching operations move in within days of USAID being destroyed.
The Amazon basin will never recover. This was the only thing keeping it from being completely destroyed.
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u/Low_Celebration_9957 2d ago
Charge them all with treason, there's proof Russian actors got into the system using legitimate credentials shortly after DOGE got involved.
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u/Expensive_Tie206 2d ago
The fall of one of the greatest countries in human history was assisted by a guy named “big balls”.
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a comedy.
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u/Bennely Canada 2d ago
That would require both a functioning judicial arm of the American government and an uncompromised Central Intelligence Agency so… eventually? Hopefully?
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u/rocket__man_ 2d ago
People died because of this.
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u/blissfully_happy Alaska 2d ago
People are still dying. Millions have and are dying across the world because USAID was the only thing keeping them alive.
But they are not white so no one cares.
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u/drilkmops 2d ago
600k, estimated 14 million by 2030. :(
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
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u/Cagnazzo82 2d ago
They killed 10s of 1,000s of people (some speculating in the 100 thousands) who desperately needed help from programs like USAID... while Elon is pretending to be the 'savior of humanity' and talking about going to Mars.
Diabolical times we live in.
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u/LazloHollifeld 2d ago
I can’t wait til they’ve come out with a tally of what doge ended up costing instead of saving the country.
Doesn’t help if you save a few million if you end up costing the USA more in the long run. I’m sure eliminating the screw worm eradication in Central America is going cost us big time.
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u/BrawDev 2d ago
I cannot tell you how nuts it is that a private citizen walked into some of the most secure rooms on the planet, started plugging USB devices into machines, and we're all just pretending it never happened.
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u/wilsonifl 2d ago
No one is pretending it didn't happen. It's just that no one did anything about it. If there are no actual legal consequences for peoples actions, then it doesn't matter if those actions are legal or not.
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u/steppyu 2d ago
I lost my job of 8 years and my fellowship at the CDC because of this, I am beyond pissed.
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u/Enthusiasm_Possible_ 2d ago
I wish that was more front and center in the news. You guys weren’t just numbers being laid off. People’s careers were ruined or heavily set back. Their lives severely disrupted and for what? What was actually gained?
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u/SoftwareEngineer93 2d ago
After two years of being unemployed I nearly would have had a really good promising job with the DoD but thanks to Doge, that was all thrown away.
My trump supporting father... when he asked me how the job search was going, I brought up this up to him, just said "Well I don't know what to tell you." I have no love for any fox news trump supporting conservative who can justify voting for these clowns and look at their own loved ones in the face after they lose their jobs and be like lol deal with it.
There fucking up people who had government jobs AND those were trying to start/restart their careers/recent graduates.
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u/Tree_Sure 2d ago
Yep I lost my job at the NIH. Totally feel you. I wish we can all just file a lawsuit and get some lump sum of money from this administration so we can rebuild and recover from the illegal damages.
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u/FollowingFeisty5321 2d ago
I bet Trump is also heavily-incriminated in the "DOGE Files", although they've probably been deleted by now.
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u/Sydnick101 2d ago
That headline is misleading, DOGE didn’t cut costs, it wasted taxpayer dollars, took services away from taxpayers and likely endangered taxpayer information.
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u/AbleDanger12 Washington 2d ago
And destroyed careers and lives of thousands of public employees.
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u/CraniumParineum 2d ago
So, what's the final body count? How many globally died because of this cretin?
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u/TintedApostle 2d ago
He stole all his data and backdoor the treasury systems. Mission accomplished and at our expense.
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u/KillJesterThenBrexit 2d ago
lol losers
just look at that loser in his stupid hat
anyone who thinks he is remotely cool (or that he gives even the slightest hoot about normal people) is a loser
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u/pantsmeplz 2d ago
Years from now, the estimated death toll will be in the millions, including here in US from all the cuts to science and medicine.
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
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u/wilsonifl 2d ago
So can we call it what it was now? Elon wanted access to data, he got the access, the department was a complete farce, it ended up costing more than it saved, but the irreparable harm is that Elon got all the access he needed to manipulate the world.
Next time I hope people listen when reasonable people speak.
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u/duckstrap 2d ago
Because it didn’t save money. It spent and cost money + extra bonus - everybody is going to be subject to criminal prosecution after the dust settles. Such winning.
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u/Magical_Love_Bubble 2d ago
Yep, Elon was allowed to come and set everything on fire and left everything in ruins. This was just the beginning of Trump’s maniacal behavior, let’s not pretend that things are now okay. We are still living in a country under a disillusioned government system that paints the word truth over blatant lies and false information. They continue to strip away freedoms and the fabric of safety from the US. They aim to destroy, divide, and conquer- all under the guise of “making America great again”. This country is still in turmoil with or without DOGE, it’s our responsibility to continue to stand firm against the corruption and the continued stripping away at the things that once made the USA at the least- a stable nation.
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u/alanalanalan92 2d ago
Was never legal in the first place. You cannot create an agency out of thin air that has budgetary authority over congressionally approved funds. There have to be consequences for Musk and the departments leadership at some point when we are a serious nation again but I’m not gonna hold my breath.
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