Ron DeSantis promises authoritarian purge of FBI his first day in office if he becomes president
riskable@kbin.social to 
Politics@kbin.social – 76 points – 
telegraph.co.uk
Republican hopeful pledges to ensure the FBI and Department of Justice are full of loyalists if he wins the White House in 2024
saw title, thought it meant abolishing the fbi, clicked, read the description, turns out it means replacing the people with party loyalists
ffs
Worse in my opinion. This is the kind of crap dictators like Putin do.
it'd be good if they actually abolished the three letter agencies. agreed that this is a worse outcome.
You don't want an FDA, CDC, DOJ, EPA, IRS, etc‽ What about the FCC or FAA?
when people speak of three letter agencies usually what's meant is fbi, cia, nsa, etc. though I'd be happy to ditch the cdc and reform the fda. doj can probably go I think. irs as well. fcc is fine but needs reforms. epa is chill.
This comment is giving me major Rick Perry vibes from when he wanted to abolish the DOE until he was appointed head of it and realized what they do.
fair enough. my view is that there's a lot of government bloat and a lot of this stuff largely isn't needed. stuff like the fda ends up blocking needed healthcare. the cdc has peddled misinformation. the fcc has threatened internet neutrality many times now. these are serious issues.
a lot of people want government to be a nanny state but I think it's improper. rather, governments should be focused on services to the people, not being a tyrant or "big brother".
I wouldn't at all mind massive defunding to most government agencies; though notably military spending is out of control. there's no reason we should be sending billions to ukraine, or sending troops to the middle east. simply absurd.
It could be said that those agencies did do those things, but those things wouldn't even have been a thing if it hadn't been for them.
Without the FDA, rats would still probably be shitting all over our meat and dairy products, and thalidomide would still be everwhere. If it weren't for the CDC, we probably wouldn't have gotten rid of Small Pox or Pollio (edit: until anti-vaxers), and many millions more would have died of Covid than already did. The FCC... I'll get back to you on that.
As for military bloat, for sure. I'm confident most of it is just to pad defense contractors pockets, and to grease political palms. I think we should protect Ukraine, since they were invaded by a power long hostile to the US, and to the world's stability as a whole. As for the Middle East, I agree with you there. The US has caused so much destruction, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians, upturning entire countries, and for what? Oil and racism. Even the excuse of 9/11 is a sham since we didn't even attack the people that actually did it, and instead allied with them. Because, once again, oil.
yup, I'm not opposed to the idea of an agency or group that helps with this stuff. but so many of these large governmental groups really don't help in a lot of cases.
They were designed to make things better than they were, but they also make things harder to make things better than they are currently. And sometimes actively try to make it worse because, once they exist, they become subject to the interests and whims of capitalists.
Make college more expensive?
Yes, the Department of Energy drives the cost of college. Welcome to the Fediverse, Rick!
DOE = Department of Education.
DOE can refer to the Department of Education. The comment and segment you quoted used the acronym in relation to an entity Rick Perry oversaw. That entity was the Department of Energy.
Actually this is an area I have loads of experience with! If you want to reduce the cost of higher education stop subsidizing student loans! I work for a huge bank that deals with zillions of student loans... They're like free money for the banks.
The best way to summarize the student loan problem is thus: When you give everyone a subsidy no one gets a subsidy.
The US government started handing out what amounts to free money for students and colleges and universities just raised their tuition costs to collect more of it. Lather, rinse, repeat! Every year they take more and every year the US government hands out more to pick up the difference. It's a system that's inherently flawed.
The correct way to make college cheaper is to pay for colleges directly rather than funneling money through 3rd party banks (we're literally just handing the finance industry free money... They don't deserve it! I know because I work for them!).
Make colleges free by paying for them with taxes just like so many other countries.
Nah, as someone who works in a college environment this will be a disaster. I know I am going to get burned at the stake for this, but most of the cheating I get from students comes from students who are attending off non-loan financial aid. So if you just hand college to everyone you're just going to see this behavior expand unless you mitigate it somehow. Either we need to establish national entrance exams, like most of Asia, or there needs to be a rule that if you're caught cheating 3 times (let's be fair and have a 3 strike rule) you have to pay back all aid doled out to you so far and you are blacklisted from college.
WTF‽ So... What you're saying is that even though it's vastly more efficient to have free college (funded via taxes) we still should not have that because some (poor) people will... cheat?
...because clearly nobody--especially rich kids--don't cheat today. LOL!
That's like saying we shouldn't allow comments here because some people will say stupid shit. I know! Let's have a test! If you can spot the unbelievably classiest/racist example comments (we'll copy & paste from your comment) you will be allowed in. Otherwise take out a comment loan and join the other serfs!
Ahhh yes this is exactly the reaction I expected because talking about hard issues makes people very uncomfy and to them it's better to ignore the elephant in the room than to address it.
Also, no, people who pay their way through college typically don't cheat as it's extremely counterproductive. It's literally just wasting your own money. Meanwhile those with free college it's not their money so they don't care as much. This is why, and again this is going to be very uncomfy for you to talk about, many nations with free college have entrance exams.
[Citation Needed]
I'd also like to point out that everyone who's paying taxes in a fully funded collegiate system is paying for it.
What's counterproductive is bringing up cheating like it has anything at all to do with funding college. It's an entirely orthogonal concept.
If I'm elected president I promise to purge the authoritarians on day one.
i hate how they weaponized the fbi. its a real tragedy. the perfect example is when they announced an investigation into a political candidate days before votes were to be cast.
The party of law & order, everyone.
"Law and order" is a dogwhistle that means, "Maintaining existing hierarchies using the power of the state". Sundown towns are law and order.
Rule of law is when the laws apply equally to everyone. The red team despises this: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Yes, and the previous asshole promised they were going to build a wall and that Mexico was going to pay for it... "...but I promised them, Enrique. I promised them".
The previous asshole also said he was going to "LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP...!"
What else is new in Red Meat Labs today? Directed at idiots who have the memory retention of a fruit fly?
archive https://archive.vn/Ttbwg
Much prefer if he abolishes the ATF, or at least removes them from everything firearm related.
Oh he'd probably do that. Sounds right up his alley! To save money on rebranding he might name it, Alcohol, Tobacco, and FreedomFlights. That way they can still be called, "the ATF".
They can continue to raid people's homes but now with extraordinary renditions and torture; just the way DeSantis likes it.
Man you people really do live in an alternate reality huh?
DeSantis was there at Guantanamo when the US government was torturing the people that were kidnapped from all over the world (aka "extraordinary renditions")...
https://newrepublic.com/post/172290/ron-desantis-explodes-asked-role-guantanamo-torture
I live in reality
Can he just purge all of the alphabet agencies? Start with the FBI but follow right up with the ATF. Nothing of value would be lost.
The best possible choice for a purging is probably the NSA and the NRA.
The NRA is a lobbying organization, not a governmental one.
I highly doubt that this person knew that. I can agree with him about the NSA, though.
Well, while I'd be happy to get rid of NSA and co. I'd not be happy to lose FDA. The world would be quite worse without it
The FDA? You mean the poster child for regulatory capture? From the NPR A Look At How The Revolving Door Spins From FDA To Industry. From Cambridge University Corrosive Capture? The Dueling Forces of Autonomy and Industry Influence in FDA Pharmaceutical Regulation
You're bringing up a very specific problem with the FDA that can be easily fixed with the same sort of legislation that prevents congressmen from becoming lobbyists for a number of years and talking about it like it's an existential issue. It's not.
The FDA does incredibly important work preventing disease outbreaks and unsanitary food for all Americans. Perhaps you yourself are a snakeoil salesman that hates how the FDA prevents you from selling bullshit like it's real medicine?
Not only that but the FDA has the most strict ethics body of any Federal agency. If there's even a hint of something unethical going on with a clinical trial the whole thing is basically cancelled. Everything must follow not only the letter of the law but the spirit as well.
There's plenty of Federal agencies that have weak oversight (e.g. ATF, Secret Service) but the FDA isn't one of them.
Lol, just fucking lmao. "Let's add even more regulation to fix the issue caused, in large part, by regulation."
Oh, you mean like the snakeoil salesmen that regulatory captured the FDA?
Laughs in the literal thousands of "Have you taken X medication, if so you may be entitled to compensation" commercials.