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And there should be no limit on what income gets taxes. Right now it tops out at somewhere around at $160,000 (I think).

The article goes on to note that DOGE is also doing a deep dive investigation into NASA. I wonder who would get to profit if NASA gets slashed. Certainly not SpaceX. After all, Donald Trump promised that there would be no conflict of interest with Musk running these investigations.

DOGE overlord Elon Musk is now aiming his crosshairs at the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), a move that flies in the face of Donald Trump’s denials claiming that the Tesla CEO had no conflicts of interest as he embarks on a federal firing and cost-cutting crusade. This time Musk is investigating the exact same agency that is currently targeting him – and fined him $22 million for security violations in a past case. The news was revealed on a “DOGE SEC” X account with a gray Twitter badge marking it as a legitimate site of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency operation. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-sec-tesla-doge-b2699798.html

So glad you brought that up: 85% of Americans Willing to Raise Taxes to Save Social Security, Survey Shows A new survey from the National Academy of Social Insurance, AARP, the National Institute on Retirement Security, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in collaboration with Greenwald Research, finds that most Americans are willing to accept tax increases to prevent benefit cuts. The survey shows that 85% of respondents believe Social Security benefits should stay the same or even increase, even if that means raising taxes on some or all Americans. It also found that only 15% of respondents preferred keeping tax rates the same, even if that means reducing benefits. https://www.aol.com/85-americans-willing-raise-taxes-153018526.html

The Big Lie was a very perceptive, if vile, insight of Goebbels. If the shoe fits...

If they keep making that claim over and over and over via the right wing media, it starts to be believed. This phenomenon was well understood by Joseph Goebbels.

And who was it broadcasting the Superbowl? Could it have been Fox Sports? "Trump briefly appeared on the field about an hour before kickoff for a photo with first responders and victims of the New Year's Day attack in New Orleans. Videos of the photo op posted to YouTube and X picked up the sound of fans both cheering and booing the president... A viral video on TikTok showed fans booing, and several international users said their broadcasts of the game showed that the crowd had a more mixed reaction to the president." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cheered-booed-super-bowl/ What's more, given that NFL fans skew white and male, you would expect Trump to do better with them than the general public. NFL: Last sports bastion of white, male conservatives https://www.reuters.com/article/opinion/nfl-last-sports-bastion-of-white-male-conservatives-idUS3291182652/

What about USAID? Musk has made a lot of claims about fraud, but provided precious little evidence. Whereas there's plenty of evidence that private insurers are bilking the government out of 10s of billions of dollars at the least.

Another victim of the law of the preservation of ignorance.

Actuially, the hugest fraud has already been identified. And it's not coming from the government, It's coming from insurance companies. Insurers Pocketed $50 Billion From Medicare for Diseases No Doctor Treated Instead of saving taxpayers money, Medicare Advantage has added tens of billions of dollars in costs, researchers and some government officials have said. One reason is that insurers can add diagnoses to ones that patients’ own doctors submit. Medicare gave insurers that option so they could catch conditions that doctors neglected to record. The Journal’s analysis, however, found many diagnoses were added for which patients received no treatment, or that contradicted their doctors’ views. https://archive.ph/HMi5l/again?url=https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicare-health-insurance-diagnosis-payments-b4d99a5d ‘The Cash Monster Was Insatiable’: How Insurers Exploited Medicare for Billions The health system Kaiser Permanente called doctors in during lunch and after work and urged them to add additional illnesses to the medical records of patients they hadn’t seen in weeks. Doctors who found enough new diagnoses could earn bottles of Champagne, or a bonus in their paycheck. Anthem, a large insurer now called Elevance Health, paid more to doctors who said their patients were sicker. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/upshot/medicare-advantage-fraud-allegations.html I should add that this is only a small piece of the corrupt practices deployed by insurance companies.

Got any idea where all that cash is supposed to come from. Nations with sovereign wealth funds generally get those funds from taxing natural resources such as petroleum or natural gas or charging royalties. And their budgets run a surplus or they have already accumulated enough founds to finance deficit spending. Do you believe that the US should go further into debt to acquire such funding? Or do you support the US increasing royalties on natural resource extraction to the same level that most other countries do on such resources?

Hate crimes, particularly against LGBTQ community, on the rise: FBI data Though violent crime is down about 3% overall from 2022 to 2023, hate crimes are up across the U.S., according to the FBI's statistics. Sexual orientation and gender identity were the third and fourth most prevalent bias motivation in 2023, behind race/ethnicity and religion... Though violent crime is down about 3% overall from 2022 to 2023, hate crimes are up across the U.S., according to the FBI's statistics. https://abcnews.go.com/US/hate-crimes-lgbtq-community-rise-fbi-data/story?id=113962673

Apparently, you believe that the Federal Government is rife with people even more qualified than Hagan Scotten: Hagen Scotten, who sent a blistering resignation letter to Bove, was valedictorian at Harvard Law school. He was a troop commander in the special forces in Iraq where he earned 2 bronze stars. He also clerked for Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagan_Scotten

Actually what you prefer is close to "truth". At least, etymologically. What you actually prefer is "truthiness". Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.[1][2] Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.[3][4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

And as I point it out, it wasn't "The Democrats" either.

Sure you can speculate all you like. But when seven people quit their job at the same time not for reason stated but because they're looking for other work, you're speculation doesn't look particularly rational. Quite the contrary. You might want to look up Occam's razor. And if by the larger point you were making is that people quit their jobs all the time for other work, it may be a larger point , but is it a relevant one?

Actually the cheap shot was the title of this topic. It isn't "The Democrats" who proposed this bill, but just two of them at the state level. I could offer far better proof of Republican lunacy at the federal legislative level.

More nonsense. These people didn't quit to get a better job. There's absolutely no indication that they were looking for one. The motivations here are clear.

Maybe everyone knows that there are such things as vaccines. And there may be common knowledge about a few of them. But I kind of doubt that pneumococcal vaccine or RSV vaccines, among others ,are common knowledge. And even if some vaccines are more commonly known, like the flu vaccine, that doesn't mean that reminders aren't useful. And the fact that vaccinations at mass events are free also warrants their continuance in the interests of public health..

For all we actually know of his origins, he could be a mixed-race Australian of indeterminate gender.

In a bold and long overdue stroke to make it the state with the worst health care, the Louisiana Department of Health will no longer promote mass vaccinations for seasonal illnesses. Currently the state only ranks as the 5th worst state in health care. Seasonal illnesses for which vaccines are available include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), pneumococcal disease, and Covid 19. In a 2-birds-with-one-stone kind of way, Louisiana is also striking a blow for youthfulness. Because these diseases most severely affect older Americans (RSV is also dangerous for the very young), Louisiana apparently hopes that the life expectancy of its surviving citizens will soon be the most youthful out of all 50 states. The major obstacle standing in the way of Louisiana achieving its goals is the defeatist New Orleans Health Department, the only independent public health service within the state. That disloyal organization has confirmed that its program to promote mass vaccinations will continue. For the information contained in this article thanks to: https://archive.ph/vxMa2 https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/georgia/health-wellness/respiratory-infection/seasonal-vaccines https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/health-care

Not the same thing at all. As Sassoon pointed out, the courts have already ruled against this kind of behavior on the part of the government.This is not a deal between law enforcement and a private individual. The judiciary is now involved.

Musk claims there are 150-year-olds receiving Social Security benefits Billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday claimed that a cursory review of Social Security records by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) found evidence that the safety net program is paying benefits to 150-year-olds. Musk, who has been tasked with leading DOGE as a special government employee, spoke to reporters on Tuesday from the Oval Office of the White House with President Donald Trump and said DOGE found payments going to beneficiaries listed as being around the age of 150, though he didn't go into detail about the claims. "There's crazy things, like, just a cursory examination of Social Security and we've got people in there that are about 150 years old," Musk said. "Now, do you know anyone that's 150? I don't. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, they're missing out." https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/musk-claims-150-year-olds-receiving-social-security-benefits Nope. There are no 150-year-olds on Social Security. It's COBOL!--UPDATED Feb 15 https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/14/2303889/-Nope-There-are-no-150-year-olds-on-Social-Security-It-s-COBOL

Nonsense. In fact, in the original letter to Sassoon, Bove specifically stated that the request for dismissal without prejudice hae nothing to do with lack of evidence but rather that other considerations took precedence. Namely, that Adams was cooperating with the Trump administration on immigration issues. As for Trump's corruption, you've goit it exactly wrong. the reason Bove called for a dismissal without prejudice was to use that as a way to keep pressure on Adams to cooperate. If the government felt he wasn't cooperating, then they could refile the charges. Moreover, dismissing without prejudice and with theexpress option of again indicting Adams in the future creates obvious ethical problems, byimplicitly threatening future prosecution if Adams's cooperation with enforcing the immigration laws proves unsatisfactory to the Department. See In re Christoff, 690 N.E.2d 1135 (Ind. 1997)(disciplining prosecutor for threatening to renew a dormant criminal investigation against apotential candidate for public office in order to dissuade the candidate from running); Bruce A. Page 8Green & Rebecca Roiphe, Who Should Police Politicization of the DOJ?, 35 Notre Dame J.L.Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 671, 681 (2021) ( noting that the Arizona Supreme Court disbarred the elected chief prosecutor of Maricopa County, Arizona, and his deputy, in part, for misusing their power to advance the chief prosecutor's partisan political interests) . Finally, given the highly generalized accusations of weaponization, weighed against the strength of the evidence against Adams, a court will likely question whether that basis is pretextual. See, e.g. , United States v. Greater Blouse,Skirt & Neckwear Contractors, 228 F. Supp. 483, 487 (S.D.N.Y. 1964) (courts “ should be satisfied that the reasons advanced for the proposed dismissal are substantial and the real grounds uponwhich the application is based")." https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25529921-danielle-sassoon-letter-to-ag/

There was plenty of evidence of crimes. Trump had a judge in Florida who made an extraordinary ruling overturning standard justice department practice. There wasn't time to appeal it. And the supreme Court decided that any crimes a president commits that might be conceivably connected to the office of president, can't be prosecuted. Even conservative legal commentators were mostly astonished by that decision.