Democrats for waste and fraud
As far back as I can remember, people considered the federal government wasteful and inefficient when it wasn’t being actively intrusive and confiscatory, as well as subject to fraud and corruption. It was the sort of thing just about everyone knew, but most people shrugged it off for the most part because it was deemed an inevitable and inherent part of government.
Over the years it appeared to get worse. Democrats seemed to want more and more people dependent on the federal government, and although Republicans paid lip service to wanting to cut back, it rarely if ever happened. One reason was lack of will and energy to change things. Another was that many politicians benefited personally from the situation. Another was that, as the federal government grew larger, the task of “fixing” it – whatever that would look like – seemed insurmountable.
When Trump ran on a platform of “draining the swamp” in his first term, not all that much draining took place. He was just getting his feet wet in the swampy mud and laboriously learning how to walk there without getting sucked down by quicksand. Under constant attack, it took a great deal of his rather considerable energy merely to keep going.
I’m not sure what you expected in his second term, but I expected just a bit more swamp-draining and some mild reforms. But so far, we’re getting a lot more, and at a lightning clip. I think most people are gobsmacked at the pace and scope of what’s been happening. The left and most Democrats are horrified. The right is blinking in disbelief and wonder, and for the most part (with some caveats) stunned delight.
It also strikes me that years ago, before the widespread use of computers to keep records – governmental and otherwise – sweeping reform would have been even more difficult because getting the information would have been more labor-intensive. Now, though – well, you know what’s been going on with DOGE. Or with things like Tulsi Gabbard’s firing of the 100 intelligence workers who were discussing, on company time, the finer points of their sexual kinks. That certainly wouldn’t have been possible without a computer trail. Despite that evidence, those workers felt insulated from any consequences for their actions, and until now it made perfect sense to think so.
Maybe this won’t continue. Maybe the courts will stop it; there certainly will be plenty of courtroom challenges. But it’s an extraordinary effort which has uncovered not just the expected waste and fraud – probably greater in scope than most people would have thought, but nevertheless along the expected lines – but also the fact that, through USAID in particular, the taxpayers were footing the bill for a host of leftist projects and even appearing to fund some terrorists (see this).
The upshot is that the Democrats have to take the position of defending – or denying – fraud and waste in government. I don’t think most people are sympathetic to that argument. So Democrats are also emphasizing the plight of the laid-off. But when government workers fight ordinary standards of accountability and act as though their jobs are entitlements, they don’t engender much goodwill, either.
Go To It DOGE! HARDER, HARDER, HARDER!
Long known the government had to be paying out fraud money hand over fist.
Where it went had no idea, until this last month. Just hoping they are ready stopping all they can, ( judges seem to want to continue it)
A lot of masks are coming off, and more will. It’s very clear now that what was missing all along was someone who actually meant to clean it up.
All the formerly normal democrats I know are basically reacting to *anthing* Trump/Musk does with a complete rejection. They deny USAID was a slush fund, 10s of billions save? So what? Trump did it so they have to be against it.
Democrats for waste and fraud.
Fair or not, that will stick. I feel so bad for them.
Niketas:
I actually think Trump wanted to clean it up during his first term. He was distracted by other things. Plus, he simply didn’t know how to do it. Now he has a better team in place with a lot more knowledge and skills.
What I’m waiting for:
1. A real investigation into how all these “public servants” got rich on their salaries. Even people who have built successful businesses from the ground up rarely accumulate the kind of money that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Dchumer, Mitch McConnell, et al have. There has to be insider trading and money laundering going on.
2. Where is the Epstein client list? Has somebody already threatened Bondi with bodily injury or worse if she releases it?
Keep digging DOGE and don’t let up, not for a moment. This is an iceberg of corruption. Bring the most guilty up on RICO charges. Foremost of them; George Soros
Doesn’t matter if the charges can be proven. Remember the process is the punishment. They set the rules, now make them live and die by them.
RICO: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is a federal law that targets organized crime.
The democrat party has arguably become a criminal enterprise. RICO charges:
“Predicate offenses
These are criminal acts that are used to carry out a more serious crime. For example, extortion or wire fraud may be predicate acts to a major theft.
Pattern of racketeering
To violate RICO, a person must engage in a pattern of racketeering activity that is connected to an enterprise.
Enterprise
This can be a business or organization that is involved in illegal activity.
RICO penalties
Prison
A conviction under RICO can result in up to 20 years in prison, or even life in prison depending on the underlying crime.
Fines
A person convicted under RICO can face a fine of up to $250,000 or double the amount of proceeds earned from illegal activity.
Asset forfeiture
The government can seize the defendant’s assets before trial, and the defendant’s entire interest in the enterprise after a conviction.”
Asset Seizure!
DOGE could be done by hand, but it would take a lot longer. I’ve got to believe that AI is the secret weapon of the Musketeers.
Watching the cabinet meeting today with Trump answering questions I was struck by the fact that these are people who are actually looking for ideas to help the country. Some ideas might not work but this is such a contrast to Biden/Obama who I believe were deliberately taking steps to take America down and put it in its place.
I read an unintentionally hilarious profile of a poor USAID worker who had lost her job and the article pointed out that things have gotten so bad for her that she had to cancel her Disney plus subscription. The Horror!
I’m a retired Federal government worker and I’m still Facebook friends with some of my former colleagues who are quite upset. These are people who have been working from home for the past 5 years and many of them are eligible to retire with a nice pension. I know that the work they are doing is mostly useless but they have convinced themselves that they are absolutely essential. They seem to have no comprehension of how they are perceived by the majority of the country.
DOGE et al.: “breaking a century of pathetic acquiescence toward the deep, middle, and shallow states
A powerful, untitled brief essay by Jeffrey Tucker:
https://x.com/jeffreyatucker/status/1893787435659674034
Trump did not even know what the swamp WAS during his first term, much less how to clean it up and/or drain it. He managed some good things–the Keystone Pipeline, the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Boondoggle, and a few others; but then there were, among other things, his instruction for the FBI to cease its investigation into Hillary Clinton, and his moves to put Brix and Fauci in charge of the Covid mess–evidently being, himself, more interested in reserving credit for himself for the stupid Operation Warp Speed vaccine.
He is far better this time, having learned some expansive and difficult lessons. I hope he grapples successfully with getting the Republican legislators to realize both what is against them and how to exercise properly the power they have in dealing with it.
Paul Nachman: Thank you for that link to the Jeffrey Tucker essay. It is outstanding. He makes excellent, solid points very well.
You know what this feels like? The Berlin Wall coming down and so many countries shaking off Communism one after another. The conventional wisdom up until then was we were stuck with it forever.
And that’s what this last six weeks has felt like: all this stuff the conventional wisdom said couldn’t be done, being done.
@huxley:I’ve got to believe that AI is the secret weapon of the Musketeers.
Could be, but the big public stuff has been things you can do with SQL pulls. Like the active SSNs for 120-year-olds and the missing fields in Treasury payments.
Niketas Choniates:
“And that’s what this last six weeks has felt like: all this stuff the conventional wisdom said couldn’t be done, being done.”
That’s my feeling as well. I look at our staggering debt and other assorted problems and at times it feels hopeless. But now we have energetic people with ideas that they are actually willing to implement. It’s hard not to be excited about the possibilities.
He didnt know how deep the minefield (my metaphor) was like dantes many levels of hell maybe just the bureau and company chiefs but it was midlevel and even some field agents if one looks at the recent puzzle palace rifs
https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1894842722252624043
If it was merely about money but this is a dangerous cult group
Yes its like the fabled augeanstables i didnt know elon was Greek.
Democrats favor waste and fraud; and all Democrats in the House voted against the budget bill, so they all oppose spending cuts and continuation of the Trump tax bill. They want more spending and higher taxes.
Niketas C. I think the one of the advantages AI has is the more human interface. And the ability to detect patterns in huge datasets quickly.
Could this be done more traditionally? Maybe. But likely not in the time frame it’s being done now.
Well that was suggested by mike pence moving fauci and co to center stage, he was also facing other agencies like barda that proscribed protocols like hcq and ivermectin
Niketas Choniates:
I’m a retired programmer. I’ve slung my share of SQL queries. I doubt that interrogating the entire array of federal government’s databases including NGOs is as simple as querying SSNs for 120 year-olds on social security payments.
@Brian E:Could this be done more traditionally? Maybe. But likely not in the time frame it’s being done now.
The two highly publicized examples I gave might require a couple of minute’s work apiece to write the SQL query. They aren’t a “patterns in the data” thing with John Nash staring at red strings connecting evidence. It’s ABC stuff for anyone who works with a database.
The missing fields at Treasury is pulled by SELECT – FROM – WHERE and the SSNs by age bracket is a SELECT – FROM – WHERE with a date calculation and a GROUP BY.
First step is database access, second step is being determined to look for such things, third step is knowing where the important tables are, writing the code at that point takes a few minutes. Then you need leadership who gives a crap.
datarepublican, whose work is frequently confused for DOGE’s, is building connections and indices for publicly available data sets to make them easier to search without storing them all yourself and writing queries against them, which is significantly more work than the two examples I mentioned but not an AI thing either.
@huxley:I doubt that interrogating the entire array of federal government’s databases including NGOs is as simple as querying SSNs for 120 year-olds on social security payments.
Which didn’t actually happen: Musk didn’t show payments on his post, just active SSNs. Lot of people missed the 0 – 19 year olds in the same figure and then played a game of telephone on what Musk found. But I digress.
Of course “interrogating the entire array of federal government’s databases” wouldn’t be as simple as the SSN query. But there are lots of data engineers who could do it before anyone was using LLMs. Somebody needed to give them the go ahead to do so, and to care about what they found and be willing to act on it.
But the hard part is access, then knowing how the tables are structured, getting systems not in the same place together, and if its huge then pulling things efficiently. And the hardest part has always been getting someone to care.
Fraud, waste, abuse, and kink in Federal agencies and the “tick” NGOs that Democrats have spawned and protected?
Almost as if there was gambling at “Rick’s.”
Shocked!
But the hard part is access, then knowing how the tables are structured, getting systems not in the same place together, and if its huge then pulling things efficiently. And the hardest part has always been getting someone to care.
Niketas Choniates:
But other than that. Piece of cake.
huxley:
“Super easy, barely an inconvienience.”
Ryan George – Pitch Meeting (YouTube)
@huxley:But other than that. Piece of cake.
In comparison, yes. Similarly, if you were robbing a bank, then actually taking the money out of the safe is the easy part compared to all the stuff you had to do to get into the bank, get into the safe and then get away without getting caught.
I get that you really want to give LLMs credit for DOGE’s work, and perhaps they are making use of them in some way, I’m just saying that LLMs are not what’s changing the game here and they haven’t shown us anything that would actually require an LLM to do, and a lot of what they had to do was stuff an LLM cannot possibly do like grant systems access to the right people.
And since you know how I feel about LLMs you of course discount that, which is your prerogrative.
Niketas C., when i mentioned seeing patterns, this is more of a general ability to analyze large databases and see patterns developing before they’re generally recognizable. I imagine an AI computer being tasked with looking at all the data being generated by every business or component of the economy and looking for patterns that might predict a movement in the economy.
I’m not particularly a computer whiz, but I did work with inventory databases back in the 80’s and early 90’s that would generate suggested reorder quantities based on a variety of factors.
This was in a retail environment. In the mid 90’s the wholesaler wanted all the the retail outlets to make their inventory databases available so they could see across the country what inventory of every item and sales so they could more accurately restock their warehouses.
This is a pretty simple example, but imagine having the data from every component of the economy, analyzing it in real time and making adjustments based on trends revealed in days or weeks vs months.
Some stories about the swamp draining activities.
First, what is going on at USAID in Egypt, and who is the agency actually working for? RTWT – mind blowing.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/02/25/usaid-in-egypt-had-me-detained-for-walking-in-and-asking-if-its-following-trumps-orders/
Second, the Supreme Court finally steps up to the plate.
https://redstate.com/joesquire/2025/02/26/breaking-scotus-halts-court-order-forcing-trump-admin-to-pay-2-billion-in-foreign-aid-n2186067
Third, Trump trolls the Democrats who have been saying that Musk is not authorized to drain the swamp.
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2025/02/26/now-its-official-president-trump-signs-eo-implementing-the-doge-n2186060
@ Sgt Joe Friday > “Where is the Epstein client list? Has somebody already threatened Bondi with bodily injury or worse if she releases it?”
Patience, Grasshopper.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14441187/pam-bondi-secret-jeffrey-epstein-files-released.html
Pam Bondi says secret Jeffrey Epstein files will be released THURSDAY and the contents ‘will make you sick’
@ Niketas > “You know what this feels like? The Berlin Wall coming down ”
Sarah Hoyt did a post on that feeling recently. Sounds like you are getting the same vibes she did.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/02/17/grab-your-mallet/
Stock warning to new readers: Sarah writes daily and doesn’t always edit out the typos and stream-of-consciousness disconnects, but what she says is always worthwhile.
Tomorrow’s news today, if you are in Australia.
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/people-will-be-actually-fired-donald-trump-backs-elon-musks-ultimatum-to-federal-workers-despite-fierce-backlash/news-story/ba3c9268ae7342cef5e5e337b7a08642
Choosing not to answer is voluntary, but there are consequences.
However, if a Cabinet Member did object (as Patel and Gabbard did), they aren’t going to do it in front of the press (even if AP and Reuters aren’t there to misreport it).
More breaking news — some info about the esteemed data analyst who has been posting charts and stats.
Sad to say, it was only going to be a matter of time until she was tracked down and doxed.
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1894540234089795908
In case you haven’t encountered the term “hostage puppy” but HAVE seen the sob stories that the Regime Media is publishing about the poor laid-off USAID workers:
(Warning: there is a long prologue in front of this excerpt)
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/02/18/good-boys-and-girls-get-stars/
Comments regarding the plight of the departing government employees are not overwhelmingly sympathetic.
My favorite comment from the Hoyt post:
The best possible response these people will get from ordinary Americans is
“Suck it up, buttercup; nobody else gets the security you think you’re entitled to, and there’s nothing unfair about you losing it.”
And a lot of them will get told “count yourself lucky you’re not going to jail for 10 to 20 years for defrauding your employer; that’s what would happen if life were fair.”
@AesopFan:In case you haven’t encountered the term “hostage puppy” but HAVE seen the sob stories that the Regime Media is publishing about the poor laid-off USAID workers:
I haven’t seen anyone here talking about it, but there were also a bunch of Bonneville Power Administration people who are gone and legacy media did try to inflate that into an anti-Musk/anti-Trump story and trying to scare us about power outages, but if you read carefully they are mostly people who took the “fork in the road” and not people fired–people who’d rather have the money than the job.
In the short run, BPA will figure something out. In the long run, since this isn’t the Soviet Union I don’t see why FedGov needs to own and run a power grid.
The other big anti-DOGE story I didn’t see mentioned here was the fired NNSA employees, with hyperventilation about the safety of our nuclear weapons.
But from what I can tell these were people in charge of paperwork, they’re not literally guarding the weapons.
Similarly, if the whole Department of Education were fired, schools would not have to close, because those people do paperwork and write checks, they actually don’t educate anyone. Just because people work in a government department called something does mean they are actually essential for doing that thing, though the legacy media would like us to believe so and is probably too ignorant to know differently.
When the BPA line on the other side of the estuary, that feeds my substation, goes down, I go on standby generator. Only the last two miles is delivered by PUD. Privatizing BPA should be “interesting“.
I used to get service from Puget Sound Energy but they were bought up and taken private. They started ditching the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas service areas thus the various county PUDs that exist now. This occurring around 2008.
@Chases Eagles:Privatizing BPA should be “interesting“.
Privatizing was your suggestion not mine. BPA is one of the more functioning elements of the Federal Government, but there is no reason why a grid has to be run by the Federal Government just because part of the Pacific Northwest has been, and that need not look like privatization.
It seems though that you think a privately-run grid would be worse for you personally. That’s as may be. People have choices about where they live and how easy and what kind of utilities are available certainly should inform those choices.
Trump actually wanted to make deals in 2017, no indictments for Hillary, for instance. He would have done more deals than draining had he been in a free & fair election and won in 2020.
Now it’s draining show time, plus let Musk get publicity and blame and power to use tech for transparency—tech can be very good for transparency, when data is not erased.
The Dem Demonization Strategy against Musk is weaker than DDS against Trump, but also weakens & dilutes the criticisms.