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William Lindsey :toad:

"Musk and Trump’s focus on fraud is nothing new. Fraud has always served as a powerful political trope, one that provides a rationale for cutting government. Accusations of fraud were used to discredit Black elected officials during Reconstruction. Ronald Reagan’s Welfare Queen was an especially effective trope directed against poverty-based policies."

~ Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan


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donmoynihan.substack.com/p/mus

Can We Still Govern? · Musk’s Fraudulent Fraud SquadBy Pamela Herd
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William Lindsey :toad:

"A recent poll suggests that 70% of Americans believe government expenditures are filled with waste, fraud, and inefficiency....

The GOP is now broadly using the fraud trope to justify cutting any popular program. Medicaid is up next."


/2

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William Lindsey :toad:

"How does Elon Musk use the word 'fraud' to dismantle the US federal government?

The term is not as an attempt to describe the world, but to change it. It is a political tool, used by a politician to justify a political action: regime change to oligarchy."

~ Timothy Snyder


/3

snyder.substack.com/p/the-frau

Thinking about... · The "Fraud" FraudBy Timothy Snyder
William Lindsey :toad:

"Musk's 'fraud' rhetoric is presented as an anti-politics, as something fresh and exciting. But it is in fact a politics, a very old sort, the politics of oligarchy. As he himself has made clear himself, Musk is a politician with a program. It is to disable the rule of law, leaving no barriers to his oligarchical power. In this scheme, the only parts of government meant to function are the ones used to silence people who point out this obvious truth."


/4

Feb 26, 2025, 02:26 PM·Public·Web
24boosts·14favorites
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William Lindsey :toad:

James Fallows focuses on how Musk-Trump's bogus fraud claims are justifying cutting vital programs that took years to develop, and people will end up dying as a result. A case in point: "the sudden attack on part of the invisible infrastructure that has kept air travelers so safe in the skies."

"Before last month’s helicopter-airliner collision over the Potomac, the US had gone nearly 16 years without a major airline crash."


/5

fallows.substack.com/p/they-we

Breaking the News · ‘They Were Careless People’: Taking Moments to Tear Down What Has Taken Lifetimes to Create.By James Fallows
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William Lindsey :toad:

"An American Airlines flight arriving at Ronald Reagan National Airport was forced to abort its landing to avoid another aircraft Tuesday, officials said, less than a month after a midair collision killed 67 people near the same airport and roughly 90 minutes before another close call between a passenger plane and a private jet in Chicago."

~ CNN


/6

cnn.com/2025/02/26/us/reagan-n

CNN · American Airlines flight forced to abort landing at Reagan National Airport to avoid another planeBy Matthew Rehbein
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William Lindsey :toad:

"The close calls come as officials are investigating a string of safety incidents in recent weeks, including the deadly midair collision over the Potomac River, a Medevac jet crash in Philadelphia and a regional airline crash off the coast of Nome, Alaska, that killed 10 people. And last week, a Delta plane crashed while landing in Toronto, flipping upside-down as a wing – engulfed in flames – broke away from the fuselage. All 80 people on board survived."


/7

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William Lindsey :toad:

Kevin D. Williamson appears not to be a fanboy of Musk and his adolescent DOGE hirelings:

"It is obvious that Musk and his disreputable little gaggle of pudwhacking throne-sniffers simply do not know what they are doing."

"Little gaggle of pudwhacking throne-sniffers" is a phrase I'd dearly love to have written.


/8

thedispatch.com/newsletter/wan

The Dispatch · Immortal Stupidity, RevisitedBy Kevin D. Williamson
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William Lindsey :toad:

"These oligarchs are not only happy to have huge amounts of money. They want more. I know, we all know, that addiction in America—drug addiction, alcohol addiction, cigarette addiction, all that stuff, is a big deal. I’ll tell you about the most serious addiction problem we have in this country: That is the uncontrollable greed of this billionaire class."

~ Bernie Sanders


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thenation.com/article/politics

The Nation · Bernie Sanders Is Sending a Piercing Message About Musk and the OligarchyThe senator is on the road explaining exactly what happens when the richest man in the world starts buying power.
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nanowiz

@wdlindsy
but who's actually investigating? One of musk's prom dates?

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yuhasz01

@wdlindsy

What a great description: "...Musk and his disreputable little gaggle of pudwhacking throne-sniffers simply do not know what they are doing."

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Martin Vermeer FCD

@wdlindsy Let us remember that journalistic newsworthiness choices don't replace actual statistics (yes, the article is a bit dated now).

edition.cnn.com/2025/02/19/bus

Same with headline crimes committed by immigrants vs. the higher, less publicised real crime rates of non-immigrants. And so much more.

The Nazis publicised a list of Jewish criminals. An example of worthless anecdotal 'evidence' being used for malignant propaganda.
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Mac Knowles

@wdlindsy
This close call story or that other close call story, I can't keep up.

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