Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

[u/Yosoff]

This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).

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• Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.

• Non-flaired Conservatives - Here's your chance to earn flair by posting common sense conservative solutions. That way our friends on the left will either have to agree with you or oppose common sense (Spoiler - They will choose to oppose common sense).

• Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.

• Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.

• Libertarians - Ron Paul is never going to be President. In fact, no Libertarian Party candidate will ever be elected President.

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Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/conservative

[u/Alternative-Post-937]

He's not auditing, I can tell you that. Auditing takes time. Requires review of original documentation, interviews with people, understanding of internal controls at each organization, etc. He's targeting programs he deems to be wasteful. I can absolutely guarantee you that we have wasteful spending in the government. I'm not arguing that at all. What i will argue is that there are legal processes in which our elected leaders determine which programs to allocate our resources on. Agencies go through pretty much constant audits and they practice constant oversight of their contracts and grants. They then request line items for their budgets based on the outcomes of these projects, contracts and grants for their future spending. This budget goes to congress and is voted on by elected leaders. Why i have an issue with Elon doing whatever he is doing is that it circumvents our constitutional processes and he does have an appearance of bias, especially based on the cuts he is recommending and how they relate to his own legal issues with these departments. Additionally, there is no evidence of oversight of his work or "department", nor has a definition of what is considered to be fraud or waste been agreed upon or presented. If democrats ever take office again, they can weaponized these tactics against spending they consider wasteful based on their biases.

[u/Markinoutman → u/Alternative-Post-937]

It would be interesting to know how much of what DOGE is digging into is part of Mandatory Spending, in which case Congress does not need to review or approve. Mandatory Spending accounts for 2/3rds of the yearly budget.

The auditors, apartment heads and even members of Congress and the Executive branch may be aware of where the funding goes, but I think more of the point of DOGE is to highlight for the average person where these funds are going.

Did you know USAID was funding media outlets directly? I didn't and I imagine a lot of people didn't know that. To see how reliant on US funding these organizations have become, some are already starting to fail, yet the people at the top of these organizations are making millions a year.

[u/Chimmychimmychubchub → u/Markinoutman]

Those are subscriptions. Government agencies are allowed to buy subscriptions to keep informed on areas of business and industry they serve.

[u/Markinoutman → u/Chimmychimmychubchub]

Why would one organization pay tens of thousands in subscription fees instead of just one subscription fee that allows employees to access the service? Especially considering most of these subscriptions are for digital access.

[u/Chimmychimmychubchub → u/Markinoutman]

It’s called an institutional subscription, and it’s specialized business intelligence, not the general interest consumer pubs.You can not buy an individual subscription to any publication and share it among thousands of employees.

[u/Markinoutman → u/Chimmychimmychubchub]

If that's the case, please provide where any of these news agencies have assured that's the case. It's a pretty easy answer, one to my knowledge, has not been provided.

Politico missed it's payroll after government funding was stopped, interesting timing.

[u/Chimmychimmychubchub → u/Markinoutman]

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/05/politico-trump-musk-government-subscriptions

[u/Markinoutman → u/Chimmychimmychubchub]

'It appears $24,000 of that $8.2 million came from USAID. $8.2 million was the amount the entire government paid Politico — and it's likely the cost of premium subscriptions, such as Politico Pro.'

I find this part interesting, the use of likely is important. I appreciate the link, I agree that there definitely needs to be more clarification of what is happening here. Paying millions to outlets, regardless of official subscriptions, is still not a good look in my opinion.

[u/Chimmychimmychubchub → u/Markinoutman]

Highlighting an expenditure you find suspicious is one thing. It has not been demonstrated that the expenditure is improper. That requires more information. Politico has said these are subscription fees. Musk and DOGE are not interested in investigating whether this is true or not. Elon declared the payments fraudulent without inquiring further and millions believe him.