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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   33233 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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And what would that accomplish?

... From the OP: "forcing programs to come forward and say, “look, we’re actually something you want to keep because X, please give us some money”, without also shutting down the anti-fentanyl work in mexico. obviously?

I also think the only reason people are protesting his actions is that they know this is the only thing that would work.

It is not working yet! Judges have blocked almost all of his big cuts. Because they aren't legal by established law and precedent (Impoundment Control Act). If I thought govt spending was about to permanently decrease by more than 20%, I'd be saying very different things (even though I also don't like the focus on cutting spending vs making govt better, more effective)

It is not working yet! Judges have blocked almost all of his big cuts. Because they aren't legal by established law and precedent (Impoundment Control Act).

NGOs have run to DC and SDNY to get blocks because those are the most politically corrupt districts. The problem for them is that the TROs are so unprecedented and off the rails that higher courts are going to need to step in quickly.

i don't know how blocking these cuts using the judiciary will work in the long term. unless this funding has very explicit earmarks from congress then the administration should be able to just redirect it to fund Trump allied NGOs. For example lets say judge decides you can't cut USAID funding overall then Trump just funnels funding away from basket weavers in Afghanistan to pro-life groups in China. Basically just do turnabout and then when people complain Trump is being a hypocrite by carrying out the same corruption he criticised others of doing he can claim he tried to cut the funding cleanly but the judiciary tried to stop him.

unless this funding has very explicit earmarks from congress then the administration should be able to just redirect it to fund Trump allied NGOs

Yes, I suggested doing things like this earlier. It might work. (It'd be harder for the programs other than USAID they're trying to cut, USAID is very small compared to rest of the federal government). My big criticism here is that, whatever Trump and Elon are currently doing, they're not optimizing for it working, they're trying to make it big and splashy.

... From the OP: "forcing programs to come forward and say, “look, we’re actually something you want to keep because X, please give us some money”, without also shutting down the anti-fentanyl work in mexico. obviously?

And literally every single program will say that, resulting in nothing changing, and nobody knowing there's anything that should be cut. Again, what good is letting them do that? Or put another way: how does that plausibly lead to cutting away the waste?

It is not working yet! Judges have blocked almost all of his big cuts

So? It already exposed who needs constant o be cut. When the Supreme Court ruling comes around, they'll know exactly where to take the hatchet to.

And literally every single program will say that, resulting in nothing changing, and nobody knowing there's anything that should be cut. Again, what good is letting them do that? Or put another way: how does that plausibly lead to cutting away the waste?

Because the programs will have to actually explain how they're supposed to be worth the money spent, and useless ones trying to obfuscate their uselessness can simply have their request for an extension denied. The denial process can be unilateral and impossible to appeal, if we want, and that would still be much better than freezing everything Day One while giving grifters no more of an out.

If it's so simple, howcome literally no sense be died that until now?

Because the programs will have to actually explain how they're supposed to be worth the money spent,

This implies that the programs did not have to actually explain before they were given money to spend.

If they never actually explained in the first place, why should they continue to get more money before having to justify it?

In the alternative...

and useless ones trying to obfuscate their uselessness can simply have their request for an extension denied.

If they were useless from the start but also able to obfuscate to both get initially funded and re-funded since, why should a proposal to rely on detecting known liars after their repeated success?

Especially if the system's managers are- by the fact that they were persuaded by the corrupt lies in the first place- either unable or unwilling to screen fraud programs from legitimate programs from the start?

There are certainly reasons not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but your proposals are structured to keep the grifters in, not least because the grifters were clearly not being successfully caught by the people who were supposed to be checking for grifters.

No, it implies that they were explaining to themselves or a very friendly review board why this spending was needed. The relationship between the groups handing out the funds and the people using them isn’t like a normal business relationship. The funding group has no reason to care whether or not the program actually works. They are obligated to spend $XK on grants in a certain period, and they actually get punished for not spending the money. So if you follow tge procedure and say tge right sorts of things about your project, you get money — no matter how bad your previous track record is, no matter how obvious it is that the program you’re proposing wouldn’t work, no matter how obviously you are going to go over budget.

The only answer is to shut it down and have a complete outsider look over these grants. If they can’t explain why Iraqi Sesame Street will improve the security of the Middle East, then is needs to go.

This implies that the programs did not have to actually explain before they were given money to spend.

They previously had to explain it to DEI bureaucrats who thought "we will abide by such-and-such buzzwords" was a good justification. The standards have changed. There is no reason to think the grifters are able to fool people who do not think "but [woke value]!!!" is a conversation-stopper; they've never had to.

They previously had to explain it to DEI bureaucrats who thought "we will abide by such-and-such buzzwords" was a good justification.

To which the question you dodged repeats:

If they never actually explained in the first place to a non-DEI bureaucrat, why should they continue to get more money before having to justify it to a non-DEI bureaucrat?

The standards have changed. There is no reason to think the grifters are able to fool people who do not think "but [woke value]!!!" is a conversation-stopper; they've never had to.

And they won't have to if the formerly-DEI bureaucrats are the arbitrators of such-and-such buzzwords being sufficient evidence of goodness or not, which is what you have if you insist that they review all the programs and decide which one to cut rather than let their senior executive branch leadership circumvent them and do things like cut.

Note, after all, the reason that they have to be circumvented is because they can't be replaced- the existing employment laws do not allow for just direct firing and replacement hiring of DEI-managers with non-DEI managers. Nor does the budgeting authorities allow for simply hiring a new cadre of reviewers on top of the existing ones- the budgeting authorities are only for so much money and often for so many billets, and the lawful hiring processes are controlled by the category of bureaucrats being circumvented as part of the problem.

Which is among the reasons to think grifters will still be able to 'fool' people- the bureaucracy does not reflect the viewpoint of the executive, and does not change as the executive does, and much of the bureaucracy was never fooled as much as on-board with the measure and sympathetic to keeping it for the same reason they were sympathetic to approving and keeping it before. DEI didn't force approvals of things like operas abroad- it was compatible with the ideological interests of the people who did the approving, and the people who would do the reviewing.

The DEI-shaped bureaucrats who thought 'we will abide by such and such buzzwords' are still DEI-shaped people who think DEI is Good Things that Good People do. The resistance of such bureaucrats to executive branch pressure to change was demonstrated both in the past with The Resistance 1.0, and has been explicitly called for with attempts to build a Resistance 2.0 coalition which opposes the goals, not just the means, of the DOGE.

The (many) examples of internal resistance to first Trump administration are what give plenty of reason to doubt that the current middle-management which previously regularly frustrated efforts will be sincerely compliant this time.

If they never actually explained in the first place to a non-DEI bureaucrat, why should they continue to get more money before having to justify it to a non-DEI bureaucrat?

Given the place this thread started, I thought it was obvious that the answer is "because letting a few useless diversity programs persist for a few months before they're inevitably shut down is a lesser evil than interrupting good programs in needlessly disruptive ways". I think it's trivially the lesser evil ethically; it might very well be the lesser evil economically too, depending on how costly it is for good programs to make up for lost time once they get the green light, e.g. restarting studies from scratch or finding replacements for people who quit for lack of pay and found other employment in the private sector. (See Scott Aaronson arguing that every week the NSF is frozen harms American science's future prospects as postdocs either quit their academic career, or move abroad rather than stay in the US - something in which the most competent, most valuable researchers-in-training will be more successful than the rank and file, selecting for mediocrity among the people we'll have left once the gridlock ends.)

And they won't have to if the formerly-DEI bureaucrats are the arbitrators of such-and-such buzzwords being sufficient evidence of goodness or not, which is what you have if you insist that they review all the programs and decide which one to cut rather than let their senior executive branch leadership circumvent them and do things like cut.

I am saying that DOGE should review all the programs and decide which ones to cut. It's not that much work.

And literally every single program will say that, resulting in nothing changing

... what? Some programs will say "we are destroying fentanyl labs in Mexico", and not get frozen. Others won't say that, because they're funding womens' organizations in myanmar, and will get frozen. It's the exact same thing that's happening now, except the fentanyl one doesn't get frozen.

So? It already exposed who needs constant o be cut

I don't think your logic here makes sense? How does the instant freeze help Musk distinguish between programs that do and don't deserve to be cut, vs just collecting the information without doing the freeze?

... what? Some programs will say "we are destroying fentanyl labs in Mexico", and not get frozen. Others won't say that, because they're funding womens' organizations in myanmar, and will get frozen

Except "women's organizations in Myanmar" will be under an "if you cut this, billions will die" item, and it will look like there's really nothing to cut.

It's the exact same thing that's happening now, except the fentanyl one doesn't get frozen.

Are you implying that all these programs clearly star what they're actually doing, and no one will try to hide their operation under a title that's more palatable to the current administration?

don't think your logic here makes sense? How does the instant freeze help Musk distinguish between programs that do and don't deserve to be cut, vs just collecting the information without doing the freeze?

How do you collect that information without the freeze? USAID refused to cooperate with an audit, that's the entire reason their funding was frozen. It was only then that we discovered that all the "independent" media in Ukraine were funded by them. You know this. How do you propose anyone finds out where all this money ends up without the freeze?

I do not think you're thinking clearly about this. Elon does not get different information if he cuts everything now, vs sending out an order to cut everything in 60 days. In both cases, he has to make factual determinations about how important the womens' organizations in Myanmar are.

Are you implying that all these programs clearly star what they're actually doing, and no one will try to hide their operation under a title that's more palatable to the current administration?

I don't understand how immediately freezing funding makes it easier to collect this data, I think that's something that was imagined after the fact to justify the freezes. (And, again, most of the freezes have themselves been blocked, so...)

How do you collect that information without the freeze? USAID refused to cooperate with an audit, that's the entire reason their funding was frozen

I do not think this is true? DOGE staff were inside the USAID building and had access to their computer systems. Freezing USAID doesn't affect their ability to do that.

I do not think you're thinking clearly about this. Elon does not get different information if he cuts everything now, vs sending out an order to cut everything in 60 days. In both cases, he has to make factual determinations about how important the womens' organizations in Myanmar are.

Cool, and I think you're the one not thinking clearly. The idea that the information will be the same is an unproven assumption. USAID can easily pretend that the women's organisations in Myanmar are doing something else entirely, which is more palatable to the current administration.

I don't understand how immediately freezing funding makes it easier to collect this data, I think that's something that was imagined after the fact to justify the freezes. (And, again, most of the freezes have themselves been blocked, so...)

What don't you understand about the entirety of Ukrainian "independent" media, and half of European leftist rags screaming about their funding being cut? We already heard the scream regardless of whether or the freeze has been blocked, so we know for sure that this is how they're funded. You're assuming and/or implying that the information would be just as readily available without the cuts, but you're not making any argument for that.

I do not think this is true? DOGE staff were inside the USAID building and had access to their computer systems. Freezing USAID doesn't affect their ability to do that.

I got it from Marco Rubio, who said it in an interview. I recall another one, where he said it specifically in response to not taking a more gradual approach, but can't find it now. In other words what you're describing is the direct result of the crackdown, not of USAID cooperating.

USAID can easily pretend that the women's organisations in Myanmar are doing something else entirely, which is more palatable to the current administration

I don't think they can, and I don't think being shut down immediately affects their ability to do that. Most of the information was already public (DataRepublican didn't need the freeze to make those websites), and Elon's able to get his hands on the info that isn't public because Trump lets him, not because of a freeze.

What don't you understand about the entirety of Ukrainian "independent" media, and half of European leftist rags screaming about their funding being cut? We already heard the scream regardless of whether or the freeze has been blocked, so we know for sure that this is how they're funded

They would also scream if their funding was going to be cut off in N days! (For the same reason they're screaming even though the freeze was blocked). And it was already public knowledge that USAID funds media across the world, including the individual outlets.

I got it from Marco Rubio, who said it in an interview. I recall another one, where he said it specifically in response to not taking a more gradual approach, but can't find it now. In other words what you're describing is the direct result of the crackdown, not of USAID cooperating.

Rubio says in that clip that USAID wasn't being cooperative, but he doesn't mention it being related to a freeze, which is the thing I was asking about. Like, Trump didn't freeze Treasury funding, but DOGE still got access on Trump's authority, I don't see how USAID is different.

I don't think they can

Obscuring what they do behind a lofty sounding NGO increases their chances of being undetected, and your approach only gives them more time to cone up with better cover.

and I don't think being shut down immediately affects their ability to do that

It is already demonstrated that it did.

Most of the information was already public (DataRepublican didn't need the freeze to make those websites.

Can you demonstrate that the majority of Ukrainian "independent" media was funded through USAID, using only the dataset used by DataRepublican? I doubt even the Ukrainian media itself knew the extent on which they depend on the US.

They would also scream if their funding was going to be cut off in N days! (For the same reason they're screaming even though the freeze was blocked).

This makes no sense. Screaming only increases their chances of being cut, staying silent gives them a chance of being missed, and to regroup without notifying their political opponents.

And it was already public knowledge that USAID funds media across the world, including the individual outlets.

Anyone saying that the majority of Ukrainian media is entirely funded by USAID would be portrayed as a conspiracy theorist. You'd be the first insisting that there's no evidence for such a claim.

Rubio says in that clip that USAID wasn't being cooperative, but he doesn't mention it being related to a freeze, which is the thing I was asking about.

Oh, come on! What do you think he was talking about, if not the freeze, given the date of the interview?

I actually saw him say the exact same thing when asked if Trump's approach wasn't too drastic, and something more gradual wasn't warranted.

and Elon's able to get his hands on the info that isn't public because Trump lets him, not because of a freeze.

Like, Trump didn't freeze Treasury funding, but DOGE still got access on Trump's authority, I don't see how USAID is different.

Like I said in the other comment, by your own staandard this solution has not worked yet.

Trump didn't freeze Treasury funding, but DOGE still got access on Trump's authority

I'll answer the rest later, but for now very quickly - their access was revoked by a judge.

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