DOGE accesses federal payroll system and punishes employees who objected

Report: IT officials who fought DOGE access put on leave and under investigation.

See full article...

 

[EnPeaSea]

In other news, common sense wins as Not Sure was publicly executed for questioning the wisdom of Brawndo CEO; plants still crave electrolytes.

 

[danielravennest]

They haven't finished building the Star Chamber below Mar-a-Lago. Once it's completed, I guarantee that heads will roll!

Perhaps you didn't know, but Mar-a-Lago is basically at sea-level on both sides (Atlantic ocean and Lake Worth Lagoon). It has a basement level, but that was by building up. Going down it is swamp all the way down. You can just use the basement storage room where Trump used to hide classified documents for the Star Chamber.

 

[Dr Zambo Jicky]

When Elon sent that email to all federal employees asking for 5 bullet points on what they'd done, I'm surprised no-one gave the address to non-employees to play with. That could cause some havoc. Still could with these DOGE morons.

It is ongoing. We have to do these stupid bullets weekly.

 

[acetothermus]

Oh. I almost forgot the obligatory, "Call your representative to let them know how you feel!"

So they can continue to do nothing while they "wait for the right pitch" to swing at.

 

[jbode]

the Kmart Rouge.

You win the Internet for the rest of the year.

 

[danielravennest]

No state is a monolithic block. California is the bluest of blue states, and a third of it is redder than beet juice on a fire truck. The divides in New York, Oregon, and Illinois are also marked. Hell, every other house on the block across the street from my kid's school flies a MAGA flag.

I really would prefer to avoid metaphorical nuclear actions, whether or not they lead to literal ones.

State lines don't define political leanings. It is urban vs rural. States that happen to have a higher percentage of urban population lean Democratic. The highest D-voting areas are Washington, D.C. and Manhattan, both large urban centers. The reddist US state, Wyoming, is also the one with the lowest population.

 

[spiry2sick]

I'm not even an American and this stuff chills me to the bones.

I've worried for a while that Dunning Kruger could place an upper limit on human advancement (beyond a certain point most people have no realistic prospect of understanding almost any aspect of how their civilisation functions and so you need a certain trust in the experts and baseline appreciation for the fact that you should really study up for a while and understand why things are the way that they are before attempting radical change, which always struck me as potentially quite fragile and easily subverted) and I feel like we're watching it play out in real time.

Alas, such is the complexity of modern life that I don't think that many people will even be able to understand precisely why things will get steadily worse due to stuff like this.

You have summed up my thoughts perfectly. Such a succinct and precise definition of the problem. Kudos!

 

[Komarov]

Perhaps you didn't know, but Mar-a-Lago is basically at sea-level on both sides (Atlantic ocean and Lake Worth Lagoon). It has a basement level, but that was by building up. Going down it is swamp all the way down. You can just use the basement storage room where Trump used to hide classified documents for the Star Chamber.

But he promised to drain the swamp! Even if it means draining the Atlantic.

Now I'm rooting for the mosquitoes. Especially the Zika carriers. Hmm ... can Anopheles survive in Florida?

 

[jocedeg]

The damages Republicans have done in 3 months can only make you shiver at what they'll do in 4 years.

 

[gru]

If you think this is bad then wait until the orange maggot takes full control of the military and security and protesters are shot dead. Imbecile population wanted a maga kingdom, they will get a maga kingdom. Have fun down there.

 

[siliconaddict]

Pretty sure this is how the Gestapo worked. We just haven't gotten to the point of making people disappear....yet.

 

[mozbo]

With so many Americans living paycheque to paycheque, I get why people are afraid to speak up. But in the end, there aren’t that many people working in DOGE. In absolute numbers, there aren’t that many republican collaborators destroying your country. In comparison to the number of people they’re affecting, they’re vanishingly few.

"Number of people in DOGE" is tiny, but there's waaay more "republican collaborators destroying your country". Those running the propaganda network. The propagandized dupes. Military and police that back the fascists (or are just willing to follow orders). Religious zealots. RW militias.

Then on top, you can pile: Almost every elected Republican, and their operatives. Most of the billionaires, and whole lot of their employees. Mercenary groups like Blackwater (or whatever it's called now). The scoundrels embedded into the federal and state governments.

Those are not "vanishingly few". Not even close. There are millions of them. Many of them will be extremely violent. They will be called in at the first sign of real confrontation. Probably starting with some RW militias, while police are instructed to look the other way.

I guess the average American needs to decide if they’re going to let that few individuals ruin their country or not.

This is not a matter of "deciding to let a few individuals ruin the country". If it was, the protests in DC would've already blocked them.

 

[MJMullinII]

The system Republicans are allowing Trump to create sounds "right up their ally" until a Democrat is sitting in the White House and uses it to run over Congress as well .

 

[mozbo]

There are four boxes to be used in the defense of freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box.

(For those of you who are young, laundry soap used to come in wooden boxes. You would stand on them to give speeches in the town square.)

Protesting is the "soap box". I'm old enough to remember the Viet Nam and civil rights protests. They take time to affect people's opinions, but they do work. The ballot box is being exercised TODAY in some special elections: Wisconsin state supreme court and Florida congressional seat(s). While Democrats may not win those elections, the important number is the shift relative to past elections. A 10% shift nationwide would completely destroy the Republican Party. For example, Trump only won by 1.5% last year.

The soap box relies on the voices of those protesting being louder than the propaganda machine.

I very much doubt that's the case. The major news outlets are one by one caving to the regime. Protests are already receiving minimal coverage. The major social media are mostly in the hands of fascists.

 

[RZetopan]

Why do these databases need to talk to each other? Having all your data in one place isn't necessarily a good thing.

It is an excellent idea if you want to make it easy to break into. Remember, with this group, every accusation is a confession. We have absolute morons creating huge waste and big time fraud while claiming to be eliminating waste and fraud. Note that even if they did completely remove the departments they are attacking, it still totals to a meniscal amount of the federal budget. Their goal is not to fix the government, that is just a red herring, they want to destroy the government. Of course, the pro-Putin and billionaire republican enablers are all for it. And they want to have permanent control over the US so that none of this can ever be fixed in the future. Project2025 is a conservative/creationist manifesto, so keeping all future citizens ignorant is a requirement. Hence, shutting down of all public education and terrorizing non-Putin news sources to silence requirements. Conservatives have been planning this for many decades, at least since then lost the civil war (“the south shall rise again” mantra). Conservatives and creationists found their perfect leader who is a moron and will proudly sign anything put in front of him as long as you praise him. A TV show (GMA) that has peddled astrology and other crap has announced that they will be featuring the Paul brothers in a positive light! Of course, they are also big Felon45 supporters. Idiot “Influencers” are assisting with the destruction of the US.
https://www.uniladtech.com/social-media/youtube/jake-paul-reason-fbi-raid-home-60tb-277035-20241120
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53673371
https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/new...-went-following-infamous-suicide-forest-video

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmuf7x1y1SU

https://www.ranker.com/list/all-about-the-paul-brothers/donn-saylor

 

[Tonkaman]

You don't think Trump is the Röhm, and the difference is that the Hitler figure is still concealed behind the curtain?

The Hitler figure is the one that did the 2 sieg heils at the inauguration. Elon is the one actually running things, and Trump is just signing whatever his aids put in front of him.

 

[wrecksdart]

Fuck accountability, fuck security, fuck efficiency, fuck you, we have a Treasury to loot and sissy liberals to take on one-way helicopter rides.

Respectfully, we don't need helicopter rides when we've got a pliable, payable El Salvadoran prison plus "administrative errors" to do the dirty work for us:

Abrego-Garcia's attorneys said that he "is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang" and said that the U.S. government "has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation."

In response to the error, the government has acknowledged the error but said in a filing that because Abrego-Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, the court cannot order him to be returned to the U.S. nor can the court order El Salvador to return him.

Absolutely astonishing and infuriating. Hell isn't anywhere near hot enough for these fucking people.

 

[Erbium68]

No, Trump has genuine charisma and a low stupid sort of cunning, he's a natural demagogue in a way that Musk isn't. If Musk tried to get a Trump rally fired up on his own, his security would probably stop him for his own safety, because he just can't.

Note that Musk's role has no legal legitimacy, and Trump has gone to great lengths to enforce the idea that Musk's de facto legitimacy comes from his relationship with Trump.

And Donald Trump, a man who would probably claim credit for selling his daughter's girlscout cookies, is improbably allowing Elon Musk to publicly take all of the credit for DOGE's actions. He's even allowed Musk to set up his own quasi-official organization for all of his political allies so that Elon Musk doesn't have to bother worrying about subborning people in the other power ministries, leaving him isolated from the rest of the administration.

Like I said, I don't think it's deliberate, if for no other reason than I doubt Trump expects any of these "brilliant" ideas to fail. But like I also said, he has a certain instinctual cunning.

Hitler was a natural demagogue but unlike Trump he was intelligent and he had an ideology. If he hadn't stuck at corporal in WW1 but made it to the officer class his strategic intelligence would have been much more dangerous, and it was bad enough. He understood economic warfare; Trump's understanding of economics is at the level of "Pull this big red lever."

The right wing think tanks that have enabled and promoted Trump almost certainly didn't expect a numbskull like Vance to succeed him, so my guess is that they have someone else lined up for the job who won't be associated with the massive failure of Trumpism and who, unlike Musk and Thiel, is actually eligible to be President. How they get there is their affair.

To me, Musk and Thiel look more like the Speer and Thyssen analogs.

 

[RZetopan]

But fear not, I’m sure they are clean on opsec.

Of course, they are, they use Signal and invite random people to listen in. Putin does not need an invitation, since he has already secured permanent access.

 

[Erbium68]

The Hitler figure is the one that did the 2 sieg heils at the inauguration. Elon is the one actually running things, and Trump is just signing whatever his aids put in front of him.

The German Constitution did not forbid Austrians from becoming Chancellor.
Though I suppose if the US annexes South Africa, Musk might become eligible to stand for President.

 

[TylerH]

The US will never recover from all this. The damage is too great. It's like that saying that whatever you put on the internet can never be taken back.

I'm honestly not sure if we will even make it to 2026 at this point to find out whether we'll have elections then.

 

[Another Tim]

Arguably, the US got all that investment repaid several times over with interest, merely due to getting preferenital treatment in Europe for decades. Right now, the US government is busy making their own enemies by being obtuse bullies and assholes.

The UK did pay back, with interest, the primary war loans, only finished paying in 2006.

 

[RZetopan]

They just don't actually bother to take the time to know what it says.

Felon45, well known for having very poor reading skills, has said multiple times that he wants to suspend the US Constitution (i.e., eliminate it since it gets in his way).

 

[wrecksdart]

Just like with the Holodomor in Ukraine in the 30s, the resulting famine was the worst in the countryside, which is the opposite of what you would normally see in preindustrial "normal" (ie nonpolitical) famines.

Mildly surprised the website is still up, but anyone roaming DC should pay the Holodomor monument a visit: https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/holodomor.htm

 

[TylerH]

[...]

I beg of you, hit the Enter key once in a while.

 

[Zeppos]

There is a level of competence with DOGE and the Trump Administration which will cause them to turn on each other and implode. It's early yet, but that will happen. I don't know how long it will take, I just know it will happen. Once everyone realizes that everyone else is expendable, they will implode. This happens on several organizations where they all fight to get ahead and stab each other in the back.

Been waiting for Musk to implode for years, but he copes with ketamine. Maybe someone just needs to hide his stash for a few months.

 

[mocked_by_many]

Could DOGE just be a Skynet cover ?

 

[David Mayer]

So they can continue to do nothing while they "wait for the right pitch" to swing at.

All while the pitcher is aiming for their groin and head.

 

[David Mayer]

State lines don't define political leanings. It is urban vs rural. States that happen to have a higher percentage of urban population lean Democratic. The highest D-voting areas are Washington, D.C. and Manhattan, both large urban centers. The reddist US state, Wyoming, is also the one with the lowest population.

I'm going to suggest what defines a persons politics, is their personal beliefs, their own life situation, and the information they are exposed to. Where you live doesn't define you, though it does have influence.

 

[terrydactyl]

Pretty sure this is how the Gestapo worked. We just haven't gotten to the point of making people disappear....yet.

It starts with "Protective Custody."

 

[MobiusPizza]

I just don’t understand the non-billionaires of DOGE who seem to truly believe this is a good idea. Are we gonna get a book from any of them in a year or two after they’ve been thrown under the bus?

They deliberately hire people who can work 80 hours weeks with little to no compensation, their mindset are by no means normal people; these are mostly likely vulnerable activists with an anti- establishment agenda, easy to be manipulated by Elon

 

[wrecksdart]

On the other, I’m sad that I can’t go to a town hall and hand my local rep’s ass to him/her in public and then announce that I’m going after him/her as a candidate.

Even if you were in a red state, you can't go to a town hall and deservedly hand the local rep their ass because they're too chickenshit to hold them in person anymore.

 

[David Mayer]

These DOGE guys have an extremely important but unimaginably difficult job to do, it's one that is desperately overdue to be done, they have the highest possible executive authorization to do it, and they have the most impeccable credentials imaginable for doing it. It would sure be nice if all the whiners got out of the way and just let them do their job.

 

[adamsc]

It probably was "mooring rope". Jesus was talking to fishermen to whom both mooring ropes and the needles used in netmaking were familiar objects. Camels not so much.
The point is the deliberate misunderstanding. Jesus was a "street rabbi" who picked up his education listening to the discussions in the synagogues (as per one of the stories.) He was addressing working people. His examples were meant to be plain and simple. He repudiated the lawyers ("You choke on a gnat but swallow a camel"). The pilpul around the very plain meaning of his sayings is exactly the legalism he was objecting to, but it's just what the rich do to try and justify themselves, and the lawyers who gladly do it for them.

There were older parables in Judaism which predated it, both using elephants instead of camels but logically similar in expressing impossibility: “Are you from Pumbedita, where they push an elephant through the eye of a needle?” or “They do not show a man a palm tree of gold, nor an elephant going through the eye of a needle”.

The “kamilos” theory has two problems: the first is that it starts showing up only in the 5th century in the writings of Cyril of Alexandria, and the second is that there’s no evidence that “kamilos” was a real word used for ropes at the time - the only mentions are later, in reference to this passage:

http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/11/camel.html

 

[ravedog]

I just don’t understand the non-billionaires of DOGE who seem to truly believe this is a good idea. Are we gonna get a book from any of them in a year or two after they’ve been thrown under the bus?

Being billionaire-adjacent might someday lead to…

 

[adamsc]

you don't think they have a budget for security? lol

USIP did, but DOGE illegally threatened their private security contractor with loss of ALL of their federal contracts if they didn’t switch sides:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblo...med-usip-security-contractors-to-switch-sides

 

[RZetopan]

hey if you don't know something it's okay to just not enter a comment.

He's a troll, none of his arguments are posted in “good faith”.

 

[RZetopan]

Please list even hypothetically what their credentials might be.

“they have the most impeccable credentials”, is and has been a constant claim that creationists continually make about their moronic “scientists” writing their apologetics. It's brain death all the way down.

 

[David Mayer]

It starts with "Protective Custody."

Certainly not unprecedented in US history, a song about Anne Braden (YouTube) who protested a lynching/execution and was arrested and put into "Protective Custody."

Actually they did not call it arrest; they said we were in "protective custody." So they put us in a jail cell. It struck me as symbolic of what the South's protection of its white women really means.

Do check out the album the song is from. Political music like this helps keep me going. Handlebars and Rise are pretty great:
Spotify
YouTube Music
Apple Music
Amazon Music


I could talk about political music all day.

 

[tRexx]

Corruption isn't a bug with this administration, it's a feature.