this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
143 points (99.3% liked)

politics

29096 readers
1807 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

paywalled article…

Here ya go!

It’s not controversial to want to go after fraud in the system.

It's highly controversial when the people claiming to investigate fraud are themselves doing fraud.

This is exactly what happened with DOGE, as well. Thiel's goon squad walked into the beating heart of the executive bureaucracy to start siphoning data and cancelling checks. They'd point at something, say "Fraud!", stop payments, steal a bunch of personal information, slander random people, fire anyone with a spine thick enough to stand up against them, and then cut themselves giant contractors' salaries for the privilege.

Reagan had his own variation on this, most notably via Iran-Contra (effectively a massive embezzlement of foreign procured drugs and US military surplus funds), but also via Sewergate, the various lootings of Pentagon, FEMA, and HUD funds, and the mass firing of FAA agents under J. Lynn Helms. All these scandals were downwind of Reaganite claims of corruption, which his appointees were supposed to solve but instead exploited or exacerbated.

[–] tea@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, agreed. I guess what I meant was it's not controversial to say "I want to stop fraud."

No one is checking the "Agree" option when the survey question is "Should the government allow for more fraud?" It's just a matter of if the person who is trying to stop fraud is actually trying to stop fraud or they're just trying to kill (or defraud) the program themselves.