Elon Musk's Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE (Tomasky/Fighting Words/New Republic)

[eppur_se_muova]

Please read the whole article at the link. It's not that long. It puts into well-chosen words a lot of things that I have long taken for granted but that many -- especially MAGAts -- never seem to think about at all.

The richest man in the world is an effing idiot. And something worse than that.
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The way Musk’s DOGE is going about these cuts is the equivalent, as I heard former Biden administration official Mitch Landrieu say on TV this week, of a man thinking he needs to lose 30 pounds and deciding to saw off his leg. That’s funny, and true. But this is even worse. A man sawing off his leg hurts only himself. What Musk is doing will hurt millions of people in ways that we’re only beginning to see.

Here’s one small example, which you likely haven’t read about but which I take a little personally. If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and went to my hometown university, West Virginia University, or WVU (not UWV, thank you). A week ago, West Virginia Watch, a small nonprofit news organization in the state, moved a story noting that the university expects to lose $12 million annually in funding that supports cancer and vascular research.
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The right-wing myth about how things work is that the federal government is full of waste and bloat and you could cut two-thirds of it and nobody would even notice. This view is based on utter cynicism and stupidity on the part of right-wing shock jocks and cable hosts and others who want to promote hatred and keep people in a state of outrage.
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And yes, they, too, are an important part of the economy. Imagine what the U.S. economy would be like if even 0.5 percent of airplane flights ended in a crash (domestically, that would mean 275 crashes every day) or if 1 percent of America’s beef supply carried some disease. It’s the federal government, not “self-policing” industry, that makes sure these calamities aren’t happening. If they did, the economy would be a shipwreck.
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more: https://newrepublic.com/post/191811/musk-chainsaw-cpac-trump-right-wing-ignorance

[Karadeniz]

1. Good points !!!