Now that’s a headline!
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Not directly DOGE related but Trump has now told DoD to cut 8% of its budget every year for the next 5 years.
At this rate, Trump is going to end up six feet under pushing up daisies before his term is up.
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Like to the 6ft under part.
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That reminds me. Has the graffiti in Rochester been posted? It cracks me up that the no-longer-willing-to-commit-to-anything mainstream media says it “appears to target Elon Musk”.
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Damn. He actually went there.
I had been thinking that he was going to try (futilely) to balance the budget without touching the sacred cows and without increasing anything with the word “tax” explicitly in its label.
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The 8% seems realistic. Just require that recruits and re-enlisters swear a loyalty oath to Trump. If you want to be a dictator, you need to have the army on your side.
8% a year for five years = 34% or 40%, depending on interpretation.
Leopards, faces,…
These guys are idiots repeatedly firing people and canceling things based on keyword searches when they don’t have a clue about what anyone does.
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I am getting a lot of burning it all down vibes.
They are definitely following through on the Project 2025 spending cuts envisioned by Vought (one of the authors)
But nobody seems to have stopped and thought:
Hold on, this might actually destabilise the entire country and invite our enemies abroad to be far more belligerent.
Its like someone came up with a pie in the sky menu of spending cuts without actually talking to anybody on the ground about the reality of implementing those cuts.
Its one thing to try to do this in Argentina, its another thing entirely to try to do this a country like the US.
You will just end up with chaos on the ground (seeing this now) and political, social, and economic instability.
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From what I’ve read, he posted on Twitter that Elon “should be shot.” Not great, sure, but… There are probably tens of millions of examples of people saying that Harris “should be hanged” and similar threats that don’t result in felony charges.
Very clear lesson though, don’t post mean stuff about Elon on his ultimate free speech platform or you might go to prison.
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I think that the authors of the plan did consider it and dismissed the concern.
If the Dear Leader can push a button and turn an enemy into a nuclear wasteland for the foreseeable future, what is there to worry about?
Sure, it sucks for those who can’t do the same, but (or so the thinking goes) that’s their problem; what happens beyond our borders isn’t our concern. America über alles, und die anderen sind unwichtig.
The folks behind the plan see a limited window of opportunity, running between Trump’s coronation and the start of campaign season for the midterms, and they’re accepting imperfections in the implementation to get it done. They’re counting on shock and awe tactics to get it done, by doing so much that opponents can’t mount an effective attack due to the inability to focus, and the inability bring effective tools to bear quickly enough.
They unfortunately realized that’s the ONLY way someone can effect such radical changes given America’s modern political structure/climate…and they’ve been surprisingly effective in pulling it off.
Don’t get me wrong – I hate what they’re doing. But as an armchair wonk who has spent way too much time thinking about how I would make broad changes if I had the power…I’m perversely impressed that they’re doing it, even as I dread what they’re trying to turn America into.
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I understand your point. Some Americans also admitted they were impressed by the 911 attacks organized by Bin Laden as horrific as they were.
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Reminds me of:
“He did great things. Horrible… but great.”
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Commerce secretary Lutnick on Fox/Jesse Waters:
Lutnick detailed his “agreement” with Musk, saying “Elon was going to cut $1 trillion of [waste, fraud and abuse]. Think about it. We have almost $4 trillion of entitlements, and no one’s ever looked at it before.”
“You know Social Security is wrong. You know Medicaid and Medicare are wrong. So he’s going to cut a trillion, and then we’ll get rid of all these tax scams that hammer against America, and we’re going to raise $1 trillion of revenue.”
Sounds like Canada would lose some of its social programs after the US annexes us. Trump’s mouth must be watering at the $700 billion in the fund backing up our social security pensions. He would probably distribute that as a “dividend” to the American people.
