Summary

Elon Musk called for the firing of Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Long after she exposed racist tweets from Marko Elez, a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee who later resigned.

Long’s report revealed Elez had posted remarks promoting racism and eugenics.

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” Elez posted in July, according to the Journal’s review of archived posts.

Musk, who claims to support free speech, labeled Long “disgusting and cruel” and demanded that she should be fired.

Critics noted the hypocrisy of Musk advocating for a journalist’s removal over accurate reporting on a public official’s misconduct.

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[+] -19 points 2 years ago (3 children)

He may have a fault or two but his work in USAID has been uncovering some serious corruption. If you refuse to acknowledge that then i don't know what to tell you.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Can you give some examples? Genuinely curious

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  • [+] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    So this is decades long waste and fraud, but a significantly higher amount of money for handouts for the ultra-rich authorized by Trump, including money piped directly to his family, is fine?

    From the PPP program:

    More than half of the roughly $525 billion in [PPP] loans doled out through November went to just 5% of the more than 5 million recipients

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/02/new-ppp-loan-data-reveals-most-of-the-525-billion-given-out-went-to-larger-businesses-some-with-trump-kushner-ties/

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  • [+] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    comic book evil levels of corruption

    Something that’s become evident, too, is that a lot of people really can’t grasp how much money is being stolen by the rich. When the administration says that DEI initiatives cost, let’s just say, $200 million, it’s easy to say “well that’s way too much money!” But that amount is a pittance compared to $250 billion into the pockets of 5% of participants of only a single program. Regular people are so far removed from these numbers that we can’t even wrap our heads around them when we hear them

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Source without an actual source.

    Assuming it's all true. No shit money goes to organizations that provide aid. And the amounts that are being spent are almost nothing. For example in my job $100 million contracts are common for single locations.

    The whole situation is literally the rich guy pointing at a poorer person and telling you to be mad they got pennies while the rich guy is shoveling billions into their tax breaks.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    While USAID definitely funds/funded many ridiculous things (such as this) they also provide much-needed food and medicine to a lot of people - for cynical politically-motivated soft-power reasons, but still. It seems very likely that abruptly cutting off those programs will cause some people to die. I really hope someone (the PRC seems likely) will step in and replace some of those programs!

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