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And? This means all immigrants are evil and bad? I assume that’s the point of randomly highlighting a Somali.
NO MALARKEY
The article is built around a partisan campaign estimate, not a neutral audit proving California lost $425 billion to fraud. The number comes from a paper by Republican controller candidate Herb Morgan, who combines fraud, improper payments, inefficiency, cost overruns, and disputed policy spending into one large “exposure” figure. Even his own framing does not treat every dollar in that total as proven fraud.
That said, some of the underlying problems are real. California’s auditor has flagged major weaknesses in programs like EDD, Medi-Cal, and CalFresh, and the state’s homelessness oversight has also been criticized for failing to track costs and outcomes well enough to judge effectiveness. So the article is using real oversight failures to support a highly exaggerated political narrative, rather than offering a clean factual accounting of fraud.
The most defensible officially documented failure amount is roughly $46.2 billion in EDD paid ineligible benefits, plus narrower figures like $1.013 billion potentially fraudulent LWA payments and $1.9 billion in questionable Medi-Cal payments. The much bigger numbers in that article come from bundling those with broader policy spending and inefficiency *claims*.
In other words, California can do better, but this is a political piece, not a neutral accounting. Only about 10% of what he’s claiming is concrete official loss figures, and the rest is political aggregation. It takes real failures and packages them into a more inflammatory narrative by mixing documented losses with estimates of waste, inefficiency, and policy spending the Republican opposes.
NO MALARKEY
If you can’t see the difference between Ukraine and Russia and try to ‘both sides’ this conflict, you are woefully ignorant. I’m sorry Mick. I don’t even know where to begin. The crimes of Russia are legion. They are a mafia in charge of a country. Ukraine has been trying to embrace the West and democratic reforms. It doesn’t happen over night. Taiwan and South Korea were pretty corrupt back in the da. With a lot of carrots and sticks they eventually embraced democracy. The same is happening with Ukraine.
Ukraine signed a major trade deal with Europe that required major reforms. It was one of the reasons Putin put this war in motion in 2014. He saw Ukraine slipping from his orbit. And the entire reason Ukraine has a legacy of corruption is precisely because of their Russian history. Look at the countries that are friendly with Russia. It’s corrupt all down the line — Belarus, Hungary, Serbia, Iran, North Korea… But of course, instead of embracing Ukraine and Western Europe, Trump is inviting Lukashenko to the White House, lifting sanctions on all these countries, rolling out the red carpet for Putin, and trying to cut huge deals with these guys, while ranting about democratic Western European countries and tariffing everyone else but these countries.
Meanwhile you defend Trump or at least normalize him or pretend he’s just another politician — the guy who is absolutely engaged in the most corrupt shit this country has ever seen — by far. Whatever Hunter Biden (a private citizen) did is a tiny blip on the radar compared to the shit Trump and his family are doing. I literally could write 100 page tomb detailing the endless shit he does. It happens so often that it’s not talked about because he’s normalized it. Or he has intimidated the press into not writing about it.
I cannot fathom how anyone can not see the difference. Biden spent 50+ years as the most milquetoast politician. The worst thing he did was plagiarize something apparently. I’m sure you can nitpick a few other things over 50 years. Trump is the complete inverse. There is no equivalence.
NO MALARKEY
Yep. Another hypocrite on the right. Defile democracy. Disrupt the peaceful transfer of power central to democracy and then use the democratic process for your own benefit.
NO MALARKEY
Remember this fucking shameful cringe moment in the White House? I still can’t believe this actually happened. Absolutely fucking disgusting:
In a clip full of cringe, “You don’t have the cards” was probably the most benign part of it.
NO MALARKEY
Almost forgot to link:
U.S. dismissed Ukraine deal for anti-Iran drone tech last year
I guess we now know what the “D’s” are in the 4D chess Trump is always playing: Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest, Delusional.
Fortunately Ukraine is offering again. Hopefully Trump isn’t dumb enough to reject this again. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Trump is probably more interested in his supposed $14-trillion dollar amazing deal with Russia. You know — the one that is about six times Russia’s entire GDP. But of course Trump is falling for it. It will make his family even more rich, no doubt (though, of course it will never be anywhere near that large — but large enough for the Trump crime family to grift).
He’s already lifting most of the sanctions on Russia and Belarus (lifing sanctions on Belarus is basically lifting sanctions on Russia). As I predicted. I wish I had been wrong.
Mick you may want to revisit this thread. http://currenteventsboard.com/forums/topic/putin-probably-shouldnt-have-kept-trump-waiting-for-an-hour/
It was so obvious Trump would lift sanctions. The country isn’t for it, so he slow played it and waited until he had an ‘excuse’. But here we are. The guy is so far up Putin’s ass it’s gross. Not a peep on this board, though, when he quite literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin and rehabilitated Putin’s image and normalized relations.
Trump — the guy who insults literally everyone has never said a bad word against Putin (but did a big dressing down of Zelenskyy). And his negotiations to end the Russian invasion always include meeting Russia one-on-one to get their stories straight before they all meet with Ukraine. Do you seriously think Trump is not in the tank for Russia? Surely you’re not that naive still.
NO MALARKEY
Hey Johnnyo, I gave you some credit in my prior comment. Re-read the first comment in this thread. I was actually blaming others.
Mick, when the country is being absolutely wrecked, I really don’t care who identifies as MAGA or not. But if you’re right, that is damning evidence of just how far our country has fallen. Then again, by definition about half the country is below median intelligence, so I guess it’s not surprising. Scare people into worrying about that trans guy they’ll never meet in their life and those supposed immigrants eating the cats and dogs. Our country has plenty of problems, but immigrants and trans people aren’t among them.
Are you all in denial or just not paying attention to the utter disaster unfolding? Do I need to spell out how badly Trump has completely Fucked up this war? How badly this is going? How bad it is for our country? This is just the beginning.
Oh, and remember when Trump scared all you into not voting for Clinton and Harris because they were going to start a war and send your kids to Iran. So much projection. My bad for not recognizing that as an admission that he was going to do exactly that.
Trump clearly learned absolutely nothing from four years of Ukraine fighting Russia. Not a perfect analogy, but in the age of drones it’s not easy to defeat a well armed country on their own turf. And when it comes to drones, Iran is one of the more advanced countries. Meanwhile Russia’s economy has been absolutely destroyed by the war with Ukraine, but Trump took a look and said “hold my beer”. I mean what a fucking idiot. That’s what happens when you axe all the competent people and run the military and the country on vibes. Idiocracy.
Since Trump is a Putin cuck, he probably still thinks Russia is winning, though. And now he’s even copying Putin’s “Special Military Operation” lingo. We’re not at war with Iran; according to Trump it’s also just a “Military Operation”.
But hey, we have Pete Kegseth who is going to win this war with alcohol and testosterone because we have “War fighters” that can do pushups and run the track. None of that ‘woke’ stuff like intelligence, coalitions, allies, and planning.
Trump clearly never read Sunzi’s Art of War — win before the battle starts. A year ago Ukraine even offered to help us with their drone technology, but Trump is so far up Putin’s ass that he declined. That was probably around the time they were telling Zelenskyy “You don’t have the cards” and trying to humiliate him. How fucking cringe. What a piece of shit. But Zelenskyy is the adult in the room and maintained his dignity. But Trump probably still hasn’t approached Ukraine for help with drones.
This is what happens when you’re country is an idiocracy.
Here’s a great mashup of Trump promising (many times) he won’t start WW3, explaining (many times) he’ll settle the Ukraine/Russia war in 24 hours, and explaining (several times) how Obama will start a war with Iran because he’s too stupid to negotiate a deal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjwmitPhCfo&t=220s
Trump aka Nostra-Dumbass. Every fucking thing he has ever criticized people for are things he ends up doing. What a nasty man.
NO MALARKEY
Oh, and how could I forget:
Kash Patel gutted FBI counterintelligence team tasked with tracking Iranian threats days before US strikes, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/patel-fbi-national-security-division-firings-iran
You can’t make this shit up. I mean, I hope it turns out to actually be ‘fake news’, otherwise it’s just exhibit A of the incompetence of this administration. But that’s what you get when being ‘anti-Woke’ and Trump sycophancy are the only two qualifications for serving in the regime.
NO MALARKEY
You’re missing the point Mick. Of course Republicans never stopped spending. I’m talking about their rhetoric. We all know Republicans just say whatever the fuck will get them elected. The “party of small government” was their big thing back in the day because it was a nice slogan the rubes would eat up. Another great one was the party of family values. Nice way of bring in the Christians.
Do Republicans ever actually believe any of this crap? No. They believer in whatever message will sell.
NO MALARKEY
Republicans have never been the party of small government. Never. Not ever, or atleast not since Lincoln.
Mick,
This is the most ignorant comment I’ve ever seen from you. I spent decades hearing Republicans explicitly refer to themselves as “the party of small government”. It was mentioned on the CEB endless times. It was all over the news and political commentary for most of my life. It was a point of pride.
Republicans spent decades branding themselves as the party of small government: limit federal power, cut taxes, deregulate, and return authority to states. Goldwater started it. And Reagan made this identity iconic among Republicans and conservatives for decades. And it remained a standard GOP message through the 1990s, the Bush era, and the Tea Party backlash against Obama-era spending, regulation, and executive action.
After 2016 (Trump), the emphasis shifted: Republicans increasingly accepted centralized federal power, especially a stronger presidency — framed via unitary executive theory (aka authoritarianism dressed up in a fancy ‘theory’). Not to digress, but this is precisely why I don’t expect Democrats will ever occupy the White House in my lifetime. Do you really think Republicans are going to consolidate all this power under the guise of “unitary executive theory” — and then just hand it over to Gavin Newsome or some other Democrat?
But back to the main topic — the “party of small government”: don’t take my word for it. Type in “party of small government” into Google and see what you get: endless links to articles and social media threads about conservatives being the party of small government.
It’s a bit of a semantic issue and probably not the biggest debate worth having. But I simply don’t know where you’ve been if you don’t know this.
NO MALARKEY
Maybe,if you had a biz and assets in Portland, you’d be more appreciative instead being a whiny little libtard beotch
Don’t ever change, johnnyo. If you ever post something intelligent I’ll get concerned that something’s wrong.
I do own property. Not in Portland, but in Hawaii. I know first hand the implications of Trump’s idiotic policies. Canadian — and other international tourism — is WAY down (almost 30% in Hawaii) because Canadians and others don’t want to travel to the U.S. after Trump’s fascistic remarks about Canada as the 51st state, after Trump slapped large tariffs on Canada because he didn’t like the deal he himself negotiated in his prior term, because he’s threatening NATO allies, and for many other reasons.
As I said nearly a year ago, Trump is turning the USA into a pariah country. I think I started an thread specifically about that.
My bookings are down and I’ve had to drop my nightly prices significantly to compete for the remaining tourists. So, yeah, I understand first hand what this dipshit is doing to our economy, small businesses like mine, and our country’s reputation.
Thanks Trump. And thank all of you who support this authoritarian. I don’t really blame ignorant MAGA dipshits (e.g., “Trump über alles” people like johnnyo*) who don’t know any better. But it’s unfathomable how the rest of you well educated, well informed voters are still on this Trump train and can barely even muster the tiniest bit of criticism — even occasionally.
@johnnyo53, the term über alles* is not used in polite speech in Germany anymore. It’s viewed as a far right neo-Nazi allusion to Deutschland über alles, with all the Nazi connotations. I know you don’t give a shit, though. Its a feature, not a bug, for some MAGA.* I’m referring to this thread, in which the term is used several times.
NO MALARKEY
Then fucking buy it. Or make an offer at least. But stop acting like a fascist bully dictator suggesting to our (former?) friends and allies that the U.S. might need to invade. JFC.
I’d love to own my neighbors property too. But I’m not going to start telling him I may need to just move my family in and kick his family out.
What planet do you guys live on where Trump’s behavior is acceptable.
A few times in the past week, Trump bluntly said the U.S. is going to make a move on Greenland “whether they like it or not”. The Trump regime has publicly said the U.S. military is “always an option” for acquiring Greenland. That’s not normal diplomatic language. WTF.
Is there not an ounce of criticism any of you can muster, or are y’all completely drinking the Kool Aide now and can no longer understand how insane this approach is?
NO MALARKEY
rogpodge, not surprising since ICE agents are running around without identifying themselves.
Huger man accused of posing as ICE officer in viral video excused from court Friday
Man arrested in attempted rape after allegedly posing as ICE agent in Brooklyn
Man accused of posing as ICE agent, sexually assaulting woman at motel: report
They are acting like the Gestapo. Are people in America supposed to accept that this is a valid form of law enforcement and just assume it’s fine when random dudes with face coverings, no ID, no badge, no uniform, no vests, and no warrant grab people off the streets and force people into unmarked vehicles?
It might be a bit less frightening if the Trump regime had demonstrated some level of adherence to the rule of law. But as you know, they’ve been grabbing people and deporting them to gulags with no due process.
Speaking of which, is there any justification for sending the gay makeup artist to CECOT without a trial?
NO MALARKEY
rogpodge, what do you expect when ICE agents are acting like the Gestapo and running around without any identification. It opens up
Huger man accused of posing as ICE officer in viral video excused from court Friday
Man arrested in attempted rape after allegedly posing as ICE agent in Brooklyn
Man accused of posing as ICE agent, sexually assaulting woman at motel: report
Have you seen the shit they are doing recently? It’s frightening. Sorry if I can’t get beyond the idea that Americans are now supposed to accept that this is a valid form of law enforcement, and just assume it’s fine when random dudes with face coverings, no ID, no badge, no vests, no warrant, and no uniform grab people off the street and force them into unmarked vehicles. It just looks like a bunch of random dudes kidnapping people.
By the way, I’m still wondering what you think of the deportation to the El Salvador gulag with no due process of people like this guy? Do you believe this gay hairdresser is really some gangbanger?
NO MALARKEY
