Government by unaccountable moron
By 
An object lesson in why the appropriations system established by the Constitution is infinitely superior to the one being practiced now:
The actor and director Ron Howard posted Wednesday on X an article by the news agency Reuters headlined, “Musk’s DOGE cuts based more on political ideology than real cost savings so far.”
An hour later, Elon Musk posted a reply: “I wonder how much money Reuters is getting from the government? Let’s find out.” Before the night’s end, the billionaire leading the Trump administration’s radical cost-cutting campaign was touting what he portrayed as a smoking gun: a screenshot of a U.S. government webpage showing a contract between the Defense Department and Thomson Reuters Special Services for “Active Social Engineering Defense” and “Large Scale Social Deception.”
“Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for ‘large scale social deception,’” Musk proclaimed in an X post that has racked up more than 76,000 shares and 35 million views. “They’re a total scam. Just wow.”
The contract was real, but the Orwellian phrase Musk seized on to suggest a shadowy conspiracy wasn’t what it seems. A slightly closer look would have revealed that the contract, signed during President Donald Trump’s first term, was for help defending against cyberattacks — that is, combating deception, not fueling it. And it went to a separate division of the company, not the news agency.
Musk’s misinterpretation went viral, amplified by Trump as proof of corrupt ties between the “radical left” media and the “deep state.”
The Reuters brouhaha was the latest example of what is quickly becoming a familiar playbook as Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service sweeps through federal agencies for evidence of waste, fraud and corruption. However endemic federal misspending is, Musk has repeatedly misrepresented facts on X to bolster unfounded claims of wrongdoing. Like the U.S. Agency for International Development, Politico and others before it, Reuters has been cast as a villain in a narrative spun by Musk in which nefarious left-wing schemes lurk behind programs he targets for cuts — and those who stand in the way.
Also LOL at Elon Musk asserting that any institution taking money from the government must be a scam.
This is attached to a larger problem, which is that the Silicon Valley bros currently running the country are people who don’t know anything about how government works and have no idea what they don’t know:
[image or embed]— Brendan Nyhan (@brendannyhan.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 7:00 PM
everything is a conspiracy if, like david sacks, you are a fucking idiot
[image or embed]— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) February 15, 2025 at 5:23 PM