This is not an invincible decision making tool. It does not mean that literally every thing that can be explained by idiocy must be. We might start by leaning towards idiocy as an explanation but we are allowed to adjust our opinion as we see more and more information.
In law we shouldn't be focused on ignorance and cluelessness. The outcome of what they have allowed is the crime. All the DOGE dudes need life without parole.
Do you actually believe that? Do you not think that at least SOME OF THEM, are working their asses off to save american tax payer dollars?
Can you point to any of the contracts in the wall of savings that have saved billions of dollars and disagree with any of them? https://doge.gov/savings
Did you look through that page before posting it? Currently, the default list of biggest savings is topped by things like eliminating a refugee intake facility, various HHS programs making sure public housing meets basic standards of habitability, and eradicating polio.
Is the argument that government was so efficient before that eliminating these seemingly useful programs was the best and only way to save taxpayer dollars?
Edit: the contract was 3.3B, so that changes the calculus to 1,109,966.78 per child. Haven't seen the facility, but i highly doubt they are staying in million dollar condos, but if they are... there are better ways to do that.
$1,136,436,294.65 for paying their legal services... Why are we paying a billion dollars for legal services of a program we have discontinued?
1,021,000,000 to eradicate polio... Of which that last case in the united states was in 2022... Polio is all but irradicated here in the united states.
We just seem to disagree with what's important and what's wasteful. You could build a brand new city for those amounts in the private sector.
That's the crux, for sure. The problem with DOGE though is that instead of creating better ways of doing anything, they just seem to eliminate doing those things at all.
Now we not only don't have a better way of doing a thing that might have been necessary, but we don't even have the sub-optimal way of doing that thing, so now it's not getting done at all.
Edit: Bringing it back to the article, if a person with access to 'a "core financial management system" belonging to the Federal Emergency Management Agency' was foolish enough to let their system get hacked, are we really finding a better way to do things, or are we being a little too careless?
It's 2.9B for a facility that can accommodate up to 3000 children simultaneously, as well as the support services to run it and provide the medical care and social workers needed to take care of them. It's not $3B for a specific 3000 children somewhere, so it's nonsense to try counting the cost per child that way.
I haven't looked at the contract in detail, but no, $3B over 5 years for 3000 people including construction costs sounds reasonably in line with prison costs (the closest comparison). Certainly not the order of magnitude too high like you're suggesting, which surely someone would have undercut on the bid if it were easy.
Wow, I took a look at the first one: ~$3 Billion for temporary shelter for just 3k kids? Almost $1 million per child??
Never heard of the program but on its face that sounds pretty bad. Grift, scam, or just inefficient govt? Not sure but not a good argument for keeping it around!
Hanlon's razor is overused and abused. Quite often, it is actually a malice and if you are willing to look at the situation dispassionately, it is quite visible.
Hanlon's razor was originally a joke. Not a scientific observation how world works, but a funny sentence about there being a lot of incompetence in the world.
I would normally second this, but the Trump admin did order a suspension of offensive cyber operations against Russia in March. So not sure you can truly rule out malice in this case.
>a suspension of offensive cyber operations against Russia in March.
uhhh... why are we commiting offensive cyber operations against a nuclear power? Somewhere in your line you seems to think that it's justified? And that biden was doing the right thing by provoking a major power?
Some people just want the world to burn, and when someone puts out the fire, they think that's unamerican?
Such Biden logic that ended with us launching missiles into russia. A constant escalation with no real end in sight and always matching "tit-for-tat- instead of trying to solve the root issue.
You don't think trump is actively involved in negotations with russia to stop all this madness?
Don't you think that one of the first signs of good faith in negotations would be to stop attacking eachother?
No other president has given explicit permission to launch american missles and use american guidance systems to launch missles into russian territory... Besides biden. What are you talking about?
And you forgot... besides Trump. because trumps not a warmonger, people like to act like he's on the side of the russians. People have lost their minds.
In the last 3 months, Trump has threatened to invade:
- Greenland
- Canada
- Mexico
- Panama
- Cuba
> people like to act like he's on the side of the russians
Trump has said that Ukraine is the one that started the war, and the "deal" he negotiated to end the war excluded Ukraine from the discussion and would give Russia everything it asked for.
> People have lost their minds.
You're right on that point, but its probably not the people you're thinking of.
Because when someone punches you in the face, you punch back?
Also I don't know why we keep referring to Russia as a major power, their GDP is about the size of Italy's, their economy is on the rocks, their military stockpile is depleted from a failed invasion of their much, much smaller neighbor.
failed operation? Have you seen the war map? After the whole world dumped all their stockpiles to ukraine for over $500B, the russians have still taken over a 3rd of the country. Biden logic was going to lead to a american troops on the ground, and a vietnam all over again.
Russia didn't punch us in the face, they punched some dude that we barley knew in highschool half way across the world.
Your numbers are way off. Ukraine has not received "over $500B". According to the Kiel institute tracker, as of February, the total military support for Ukraine from all all over the world combined stands at 132 billion EUR (~148bn USD). Nor does Russia control a third of the country. Russia controls 18.3%, of which 7.05% was occupied before 2022 and 11.25% since then. The total area held by Russia peaked in the first month of the war at 25.86%, was reduced to 18% with Ukrainian counteroffensives, and has stood there since the late 2022.
While looking at the chart, keep in mind that Russia currently loses around 30-45k people a month as dead and wounded and they have nothing to show for it. The last major territorial gains were during the first month of the war in March 2022. It's a total military disaster with no end in sight.
And the person you replied to is absolutely right: Russia is not fighting for the potato fields of Ukraine, but to dismantle the entire international security system that the US built after the WWII to secure commerce and influence on the world. Ukraine is one of the stepping stones. Here's the full blueprint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics#Con...
This isn't an example of incompetence. DOGE staff broke laws when they connected their personal computers to classified system. They knew better, plenty of people told them not to do this and they still did it.
They could have followed OpSec rules and still done their work. They chose not to do so. Their willful disobedience of the laws and OpSec might stem from multiple rationals, but it doesn't matter, because their actions are criminal and their negligence is beyond incompetence.
