red viking

We all knew there was social security (and medicare) fraud on an individual level. That fraud should be eliminated to the extent practicable. We are also all in agreement with that. I think we still are. Please show me something new and significant. I agree that's nice if we can wipe out the payments for a few 160 year olds but how many of them are there (how many did he really find) and how much is this really going to save? Again, we're talking fractions of fractions of fractions of single penny if the entire federal budget is a dollar. Now, if we can take down corporations that are fraudulently getting tens of billions of dollars each (most likely as part of the Pentagon budget), then I'd be more enthusiastic. That's a much lower priority for DOGE for convenient reasons, if its even something they want to look for. Meanwhile, we'll actually increase overall fraud with the laying off of federal workers that oversee the money going out, including IRS agents that make sure people aren't committing fraud on their taxes.

OMG. I'm actually pointing out what a dumb argument this is. See Caveira's point above. I'm making fun of it.

We already knew this was a problem

So, I think we should gut 95% of our military spending. I guess that means that 95% of our military spending is "fraud." Great logic.

$2.7T in fraud, or $2.7T in "waste," based merely upon the fact that they didn't like it?

OK. Usually wingers try to draw cause-effect relationships without further data when they find a correlation that they like. If you aren't doing that, then my bad. It does appear to be a factual correlation. I would add that I think it applies to men too, from what I can tell. Perhaps the correlation is stronger for women. If so, the reasons why would be interesting to look into.

I think it's pretty clear that these are common sense associations. All other factors being equal, a healthy person with more money will be happier than a person that has to live on welfare due to health problems. Same with most or all of the other factors I cited above. No, I'm not going to "look it up," because I know that you know it's true. I'm sure there are plenty of studies that prove these correlations if you do a simple search. You're the ones (or at least Caveira) that appear to be implying that there is cause-effect relationship here, so the onus is on you. Or are you merely saying there is a correlation and stopping right there? If so, then I don't have a problem. The majority of scientific studies do appear to show this correlation. While interesting, a correlation doesn't really mean much because there can be dramatically different reasons for any correlation.

Yes, Fox being the most viewed news/entertainment outlet in the country is certainly part of "the media."

Yes, but spirituality doesn't have to be. You can practice spirituality without following a dogmatic b.s. religion. Religion is for the mentally weak.

On average, they are more likely to be a minority, have less money, have a higher rate of homelessness, disabilities, be uneducated, single, not practice spirituality, etc. compared to conservative women. Good that they controlled for age, but there are several other factors at play here. You can't do anything close to drawing a cause-effect relationship based upon this information.

This does appear to be true, but this is only a correlation and not a cause-effect relationship. Those that have some basic scientific background understand just how flawed it would be to draw a cause-effect relationship here. For example, there are several factors that would generally cause somebody to be happier AND more conservative at the same time: A few that come to mind: 1) Being a man (possible), 2) Being white, 3) Being religious and attending church (even though the Christian church is full of BS, most likely), 4) Having more money, 5) Being married, 6) Not being homeless, 7) Being older, #8 not being handicapped, and 9) Not having significant health problems. There are many more if you look at the data. Basically, the downtrodden in society that are struggling just to get by and don't know where their next meal is coming from or how their kids are going to be able to go to college are going to tend to be more liberal and also unhappy. The fat cats with great jobs and health that have never faced adversity, discrimination or financial insecurity, etc are going to tend to be happier AND more conservative, all other factors being equal. It's extremely basic and should be easy to understand.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/14/thought-and-cancelled-elections-how-do-jd-vances-europe-claims-stand-up It would have been a great speech if he was telling the truth.

Just one? God, I could go on for hundreds of pages, so thanks for limiting it to one. You could pick and choose from all the lies about the alleged 2020 voter fraud (related to Biden because it indicates that he fraudulently won), where Fox had to pay Dominion almost $1 billion dollars due to all their lies.

No, I don't, actually. That's about as ambiguous of an accusation as you can get. Believing "the media" about Biden. Which media and which specific act? He could literally be talking about a million different things if you include all the actions by Biden reported by the all the media outlets.

Huh? Can you be more specific?

....still looking. I want DOGE to do something useful besides just lay off federal workers that are about 1% of the federal budget.

This is absolutely amazing. You're dismissing something the President did because a mayor in Chicago did something that you claim is similar (which it isn't). Not only is this "whataboutism," but you're comparing the actions of a President to a mayor that most of us have never even heard of. Pathetic!!!!

Yah; like I'm going to take ANYTHING that a Musk appointee like Lee Zeldin says at face value. There's a twist at a minimum. Something between that and an outright lie. Is there any evidence that this money was going to be used as a slush fund by Biden? There should be bank account transactions on record if it was being used in this way. ...still looking for fraud....

The ends justify the means for the wingers nowadays. There's zero morality; win at all costs. Screw the Constitution. They suddenly don't care much about the deficit anymore either. Notice that? Then they'll suddenly re-gain their morals when we have a Democratic President and be constantly talking about proper checks and balances, and the deficit. The hypocrisy of the right at it again.

LMFAO. That was basically put out by the Musk Administration itself, so that's gonna have even more of a spin than the NY Post or Fox News.

The conspiracy theories from the right never end. These idiots will believe anything that fits their pre existing ideology. No substantiation needed. Fox News and NY Post have replaced the national enquierer.

They're not doing jack squat except destroying jobs, which will destroy oversight and allow rampant corruption and more profit for Tesla. Not even putting the smallest dent in the actual budget though. What a complete joke.

We're rapidly becoming an extremely corrupt country, at warp speed. There was always some of this, but diaper boy is taking it to the next level by OPENLY giving his loyalists drastic favors based only upon their loyalty, such as pardoning them, appointing them as heads of federal agencies, and even letting them run the country (eg President Musk).

More complete incompetence

We're 4 weeks into our great turnaround and DOGE is hard at work infiltrating every govt agency. So far, they've "uncovered" what they consider waste but where is this widespread fraud they said they'd find? Surely, they should have found something by now if it is so rampant. There's some stuff we already knew about that they repeated back to us, like individuals getting welfare that shouldn't. GREAT FOR THEM!! Too bad they haven't started on the Pentagon yet.