February 6, 2025

Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein talk about the "crazy shit" Elon and his 6 "young wizards" have found over at USAID.


Full 3-hour episode — audio and transcript — here, at Podscribe. Full 3-hour video here, at YouTube.

ROGAN: "It's very strange that the media's ignoring it, especially the left wing media. It's just too big of a win for the right. And so they're just ignoring it. And then they're just highlighting the good things that USAID did, which I'm sure it probably did. Probably had to do some good things to like at least justify its existence."

WEINSTEIN: "As a cover story? I'm not even sure. Maybe. It doesn't change anything. Obviously this was a mechanism used to funnel money to all sorts of things that we didn't vote on, that don't make sense in light of our constitutional structure. And I'm, you know, I obviously have concerns like everybody else about where this train takes us, but seeing that structure broken up is, it's a huge relief."

25 comments:

Oso Negro said...

It seems the cutest plan the Democrats have is to fall back on unelected Federal judges. I expect we will soon learn whether the Supremes think the various agencies are under control of the president or not. The Constitution is an amazing document but I don’t see how it can emanate an unaccountable fourth branch of government

rehajm said...

We’re going to learn this kind of fraud infects every aspect of government spending- entitlements, defense…especially defense.

rehajm said...

Why do they believe the structures are being broken up?

BUMBLE BEE said...

From the comments @ Joe Rogan....
"To the people complaining about how people overseas will starve......Flint, Michigan's water problem STILL hasn't been resolved."

Jimmy said...

The NGOs are essentially non profits, and so people were paid 6 and 7 figure salaries, plus benefits.
Using our money, these bastards worked against america, everyday, while enriching themselves.
Why even bother paying taxes? so many billions have disappeared over the lasst decades, and all of it seems long gone. Apparently gone into the bank accounts of those living around DC, which are some of the richest areas in America.
It's all a big scam, and most of us aren't allowed in the club. So do people go to jail, or do people like the clintons, obama, speaker ryan etc just get to try another scam, as soon as Musk is gone

BUMBLE BEE said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BUMBLE BEE said...

See also ACORN.

Kakistocracy said...

This is a classic game of iterated prisoner's dilemma, and after years of America choosing "cooperate", Trump has chosen "defect". He's going to score highly in this round, but find that in later rounds many erstwhile friends and partners are going to tell him to go and poke it.

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." ~ Oscar Wilde

Narr said...

It used to be said that foreign aid was a means to take money from working- and middle-class Americans and distribute it to rich and connected foreigners.

If only that was the full story.

Vance said...

Leftists are sure wailing about accountability and audits and sunshine being shone on their shady deals. It's about time! I hope we see frogmarches and arrests soon. Lots of corrupt GOPe types in there too, I imagine.

Mason G said...

"To the people complaining about how people overseas will starve......"

Bad things are going to happen no matter what the US does. Doesn't make it our responsibility as a country. On the plus side, everybody who's concerned about people overseas starving are free to send as much aid as they like.

Mark said...

Turns out that even a cursory security clearance would have probably prevented hiring the guy they put into Treasury.

Which begs the question, how are these people accessing secure data without the slightest vetting?

Drago said...

Those grapes are sure going to turn sour someday!

And a non-sequitor Oscar Wilde quote to boot!

LOL

Leland said...

I'm a little over halfway through. Not sure it is worth going all the way, but it is a great podcast.

Why not continue? Because they just spent time talking about what to do instead of UBI to help those who lose their jobs due to AI. I think Weinstein makes a good point here, but overall, it is a clear sign that they are on the left side of the political spectrum. Yet being in favor of minimum levels of universal welfare makes them very far right these days.

Then Joe starts talking about UFOs, and I recall why I never listened to Alex Jones.

Drago said...

Poor Dumb Lefty Mark.

I'll try and spell it out for you so that you, in your extraordinarily limited way, can understand it (though I doubt it).

The DOGE group was not conjured up out of thin air. The obama admin created a group called US Digital Services, which has a mandate and mission statement to modernize all computer systems in the US government.

All the Trump admin did was to take the existing US Digital Services group, which has had full, UNELECTED PEOPLE!!!! access to all Treasury records since the obambi admin and RENAME it DOGE.

Yep. That's it.

And the team members of the DOGE group are all ACTUAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES! (is this helping Dumb Lefty Mark? No? Maybe?) Let's continue:

It gets better: the members of this team all went thru the formal Treasury Dept hiring processes, including one of the team members having his final interview with none other than Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

These ACTUAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES, only have read access (which is all they need to capture the state of the systems currently in use and make recommendations....to the Federal Reserve (interestingly, not Treasury...more stuff, like just about all other stuff in the world that Dumb Lefty Mark does not know) and it took a couple weeks to complete the security clearances for these dudes....which is pretty much standard practice.

Thanks for playing Dummy! Always a pleasure.

Drago said...

Just wait until the other DOGE dudes parceled out to the other departments start reporting back in volume precisely what they are finding!

One can hardly wait.....

Drago said...

It should be noted that members of the DOGE team can include:
- Agency employees
- Recently hired temporary workers (classified as special government employees.....like Musk)
- New Full-time employees

Any new employee will have to complete background checks and obtain clearances where appropriate, however waivers are available under certain criteria which is what has occurred in multiple instances with some of the DOGE (formerly US Digital Services) chaps.

Drago said...

Further, the complete renaming of the obambi admin created US Digital Services was to US DOGE Services. So they even kept most of the name the same to make it easier for dunces like Dumb Lefty Mark to keep up!....
.....though he still keeps falling behind.

Its inexplicable.

RCOCEAN II said...

I"ve never gotten why the Weinstein brothers are so popular, but then you can say that about a lot of pundits.

AZ Bob said...

"It's very strange that the media's ignoring it, especially the left wing media."

No, it's par for the course. Most of the time they get away with it except when they ignored Biden's decline until it was too late.

john mosby said...

Drago, also, all security clearances and all classifications emanate from the President. Kind of like how the British Monarch is the "Fount of Honour" for all titles. All the clearance procedures are for the underlings who normally give out clearances using authority the President delegated to them. But if the President wants to all by his damself say "Arise, Sir Drago, thou art now TS/SCI," the President can do that.

JSM

john mosby said...

I mean, how in crap did we give clearances to the Kraut nuke and rocket scientists? I think somewhere in the checklist is "have you ever made war on the United States?" Ultimately, it's always a judgment call. And the President has the final judgment. Or the first and final judgment.

JSM

Iman said...

Says it’s been a racket for a long, long time. I’m watching the full episode now, almost through it. Worth a watch!

Kirk Parker said...

RCOCEAN,

For Bret at least, he initially came to widespread public attention for going against the woksters at his university, and when they came for him refusing to back down.

I've watched and read etranscripts from a few of his podcasts and found them moderately interesting, and his conversation with Tucker Carlson about having recently visited the Darien Gap area (where Weinstein had done some of his PhD research, so he had some familiarity with the area) was quite fascinating.

And I think at least some of his popularity has to do with the Samuel Johnson effect - he's a recovering lefty in the same vein as Greenwald, Taibbi, Turley, and Gabbard, and undoubtedly that gets him some attention that a person from the right who said exactly the same things probably wouldn't receive.

Kathryn51 said...

For Bret at least, he initially came to widespread public attention for going against the woksters at his university, and when they came for him refusing to back down.

He was a professor at commie-central Evergreen State College in WA state and he refused to participate in a "shutdown"/boycott for reasons that even I have forgotten so we know it was simply the outrage-of-the-day. He and his wife (also a professor) sued and recovered but both were essentially forced to leave. He's a fuckin' liberal! Not socialist liberal - just liberal/liberal. I watch his podcast every once in awhile.