Chicken Littles, or real worry?

[anawim]

There are a couple of minor social media sites (Reddit and Nextdoor) that are in a frenzy over Elon Musk's DOGE taking over, and/or limiting access.

1) A subreddit group for genealogy are all in a knot over Musk deleting archive references to US census. There is a 503 error message. Not even sure what that is, or means. I asked for a link to the story. We'll see.

2) Nextdoor linked a story from the WSJ about his access to an accounts payable department that funds various agencies:
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/elo ... yURL_share

So my question is, why is this so bad? What am I not seeing? ETA: The story says that the access is Read Only. I guess they fear it won't stop there.

[zeno]

On its face it would seem reasonable that the DOGE would be able to review what the government is actually spending - that's the 2nd item, right?

I have no idea what would be going on with the census. Definitely need more info there.

[anawim]

On its face it would seem reasonable that the DOGE would be able to review what the government is actually spending - that's the 2nd item, right?

I have no idea what would be going on with the census. Definitely need more info there.

I haven't gotten a response yet on the first issue. Apparently they think it has to do with deportations of illegals. I don't get the connection, but without additional information, I'm in the dark.

[zeno]

Curiosity led me to Google musk + census. I got this article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/upsh ... pages.html

More than 8,000 webpages across more than a dozen U.S. government websites have been taken down since Friday afternoon, a New York Times analysis has found, as federal agencies rush to heed President Donald Trump’s orders targeting diversity initiatives and “gender ideology.”

...
Among the pages that have been taken down:

— More than 3,000 pages from the Census Bureau, the vast majority of which are articles filed under research and methodology. Other missing pages include data stewardship policies and documentation for several data sets and surveys.

So it sounds to me like federal bureaucrats are taking a rather ham handed approach to compliance (probably intentionally) . Not clear on how people are saying Musk is responsible...maybe there is something else?

[anawim]

Thanks for checking for me. Still don't understand what their concern is, but then there are people who get in a tizzy no matter what.

[zeno]

It's a primary symptom of TDS.

[anawim]

It's a primary symptom of TDS.

I recently discovered that the original expression, "Bush Derangement Syndrome" was coined by Charles Krauthammer. Don't know who changed it to apply to Trump. I first heard it from Rush Limbaugh

[Doom]

Let's be clear: an act of Congress created DOGE during Obama's term under the name EOE all Trump did was change the name to Department of Goverment Efficiency, or DOG, as a kind of pun. If you don't understand the meaning of the pun, I don't know what to tell you, could you look it up?

Democrats complaining that Musk is "unelected" are being intentionally stupid. Everyone who works in the Executive Branch other than the president is "unelected", this does not make them illegitimate. The only thing Musk and his team are doing is AUDITING. They can recommend cuts to spending, but other than the spending in the executive branch, which is ENTIRELY at the discretion of the president, all Musk can do is recommend.

Democrats are panicking because DOGE is uncovering a lot of apparent corruption by Congressional Democrats. USAID has been doing a lot of illegal stuff that has been uncovered. We now know that both Lynn Cheney and AOC were elected to Congress with the support of USAID. Indeed, it is becoming clear that USAID is a giant Democrat slush fund.

And a lot more disturbing revelations have been made. For example, Musk uncovered a secret government grant that has existed since 2004. We know that in 2024 $624 million was given both the purpose of the grant and the identity of the person or persons receiving it are classified,


Why is the executive branch giving half a billion dollars every year to some unknown person for reasons we are not allowed to know? Wherever this money is going, it cannot possibly be legal.

With all this corruption being exposed, Democrats are getting nervous, and several prominent members of Congress are likely to receive jail time once the full story comes up, that's why they are freaking out and trying to stop the audit.


According to a hidden source within the DNC who has proven reliable in the past (for example, this source said correctly that the internal polls in the Kamala Harris campaign and the Biden campaign before that never once showed a Democrat lead), if USAID is blown up, this will be, for the Democratic Party "A bigger blow than 9-11", according to this source, Democrats are extremely scared about this becoming public because if the funding ends, the DNC could go bankrupt and the Democratic Party could go the way of the Whigs.

[Highlander]

On its face it would seem reasonable that the DOGE would be able to review what the government is actually spending...

Having worked for the government, I would say that it highly improbable that anybody can determine what the government is actually spending. The obfuscation and accounting magic, chicanery and outright deception easily prevent an accurate assessment.

Later:

Read today that when DOGE arrived at USAID, the staff was hiding "incriminating" evidence. No surprise. When I was a fed, my organization was inspected, had pages of write ups on various issues, and refused to answer them by saying that the inspectors did not understand the nuances and intricacies of the organization. We never answered a single finding.

[Tired]

USAID should NEVER, under any circumstances, be resuscitated...

[peregrinator]

Yes, it's weird how USAID has become a sacred cow even among some Catholics. When I was received into the Church in the late 1990s the talk among Catholic conservatives was all about USAID flooding African countries with condoms and hormonal contraceptives.

[Highlander]

So, tell me about Catholic Relief Services.

It seems that USAID was funneling funds to Hamas directly and through various NGO's ... including Catholic Relief Services. Assuming the reporting is correct, I would like to learn more about CRS.

Apropos of this, I had a discussion this weekend with one who responded to my criticism of another Catholic charity with -- "But they do good stuff. Which negates the bad stuff." Somehow that argument did not convince me.

[Riverboat]

"But they do good stuff. Which negates the bad stuff." Somehow that argument did not convince me.

Nor yours truly. Funneling money to Hamas is really, really bad. Nothing could remove that stench.