MONDAY: The "night assault" (and the madness) continue!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2025

What Dagen McDowell said: There's a reason why we keep citing the "night assault" which destroyed sacred Troy—the assault described by Professor Knox way back in 1990.

We do so because, at times like these, we humans are wired for incomprehension. Our wiring may keep us from being able to see what's actually happening all around us. An external comparison, perhaps from literature, may better equip us to see.

As described by Professor Knox, that ancient night assault was ugly and it was vast. It was a sweeping assault on every aspect of decency.

It was accompanied by unmistakable human madness. But so perhaps, is the situation being described in this new report from the New York Times:

Musk Team Seeks Access to I.R.S. System With Taxpayers’ Records

The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to give a team member working with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to sensitive taxpayer data, people familiar with the matter said.

The systems at the I.R.S. contain the private financial data tied to millions of Americans, including their tax returns, Social Security numbers, addresses, banking details and employment information.

[...]

Gavin Kliger, a young software engineer who was brought into the Office of Personnel Management as part of the DOGE effort, worked at I.R.S. headquarters on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. He will be assigned to the I.R.S. as a senior adviser to the acting commissioner. The tax agency is still working out the exact terms of his work at the I.R.S., though he is expected to have broad access to its systems, according to the two people.

As of Sunday evening, he had not yet gained access to sensitive I.R.S. data, the two people said.

Is this a form of madness? Here's the dope on Gavin Kliger, according to the leading authority on this "young engineer:"

Gavin Kliger

Attended UC Berkeley, graduating in 2020. Problematic tweets and Substack post.

According to the leading authority, a young engineer is about to become a senior adviser! He's only four years out of college—and just for the record, just how "problematic" were those tweets and that post?

You can judge that for yourself! As one of its sources, the authority links to this brand-new report at Mother Jones:

DOGE Worker Says He Was Radicalized by Reading Writer Who Later Denied Holocaust

In a since-deleted Substack post, an engineer working for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wrote about his radicalization, noting a key influence was an essay by Ron Unz—an infamous figure who has written about race science; donated money to the white nationalist website VDare, which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a hate group; and has been accused by the Anti-Defamation League of “hardcore antisemitism,” including Holocaust denial.

The Substack post, titled “Why I Joined DOGE,” was written by DOGE engineer Gavin Kliger.

Kliger has already been in hot water. He also reportedly reposted white nationalist Nick Fuentes disparaging a Black child on his now-private X account. (On the account, Kliger called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a slur and demanded military tribunals and executions of undocumented migrants who commit crimes, according to Rolling Stone.)

The post was published Friday and was still available online Sunday morning around 9:30 a.m. ET. It was deleted on Sunday... 

If the Mother Jones reporting is accurate, this youngster may sound a bit shaky. The authority link to a second source—this report at Wired:

The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover

[...]

Kliger, whose LinkedIn lists him as a special adviser to the director of OPM and who is listed in internal records reviewed by WIRED as a special adviser to the director for information technology, attended UC Berkeley until 2020; most recently, according to his LinkedIn, he worked for the AI company Databricks. His Substack includes a post titled “The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies,” as well as another titled “Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears.”

We haven't read the Substack post. Question:

If Kliger is given the kind of access described by the New York Times, could that be part of a "night assault" in the sense of Professor Knox's use of the term? 

Things are moving very quickly. Also, things are stunningly dumb. At long last, that brings us to the question of what Dagen McDowell said on the February 7 Gutfeld!

As we noted last week, the program's host had made an array of remarkable statements about the past conduct of USAID. The agency had been toppling foreign governments, he said, without providing any evidence. He then said that USAID had also tried to undermine the MAGA revolution here at home.

After delivering his "monologue," Gutfeld let each of his four stooges comment. He came to McDowell second. 

As always, McDowell was furious. She seemed to say she doesn't believe that USAID does any humanitarian work around the world at all. 

She seemed to say that the claim is fake. This is what was said:

GUTFELD (2/7/25): It makes you wonder. Was the humanitarian stuff just done so they could do these other things?

MCDOWELL: I don't even believe the humanitarian work actually happens. Because if you look at, say, Afghanistan—because USAID worked in all these war-torn areas to rebuild, say, Iraq and Afghanistan. What happens— 

You only get— 

It's the cheerleaders back here at home. They never track how the money is spent. Because you just spent the money. You don't detail where it went, because if you report on the outcomes, your budget's not going to get replenished. 

So in Afghanistan, for example, you would hear, "Ohhhh, the hospitals we built!" But you didn't hear—there weren't any doctors, or drugs, or even patients, in the hospital.

Or, "This school that we built!" But there weren't any teachers or students in the [struggles to suppress an F-bomb] school.

GUTFELD: [LAUGHTER]

MCDOWELL: But I have to stop you with the western North Carolina thing since I am one-sixteenth hillbilly—the rest is redneck tobacco farmer.

I wish they had gone to western North Carolina and for every USAID worker, the weepy con artists, they had gotten a flag-wavin', God-fearin' patriot hillbilly and let that man or that woman fire that worker and filmed it. Showing them the business end of what America really looks like—I mean, that would be the best TV series ever.

GUTFELD: Yes!

[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]

For the record, the previous guest had referred to hurricane recovery efforts in western North Carolina. This explains the second part of McDowell's explosion.

McDowell hails from south central Virginia. She said she's one-sixteenth hillbilly. The rest is redneck tobacco farmer, she said.

At age 53, she's also co-host of several shows on Fox Business. Her remarkable fury is routinely apparent when she guests on the Gutfeld! show. Under current arrangements. this is part of what makes her such an enjoyable guest.

On this occasion, she made some typically strange accusations. She seemed to say that USAID constructs Potemkin projects around the world—schools which don't have any students, hospitals which don't have any doctors or patients.

No one asked her for the basis on which she would make such claims. Questions like that are no longer asked within the culture of "cable news" as performed on the fully Potemkin enterprise known as the Fox News Channel.

The fury took a different form as McDowell continued. She said she longed for the chance to see each of the "weepy con artists" at USAIDS fired, for later viewing on TV, by "a flag-wavin', God-fearin' patriot hillbilly." That's what she'd like to see. 

(Also, she said she knows what America really looks like. According to McDowell, America looks like her!)

Beyond that, we call your attention to her apparent struggle to suppress the F-bomb which she longed to let loose on the world.

In the transcript we've provided, you can see where the apparent struggle occurred. Due to a twist of fate at the Internet Archive, the struggle may not be quite as obvious there as it is in watching a full videotape.

In the famous Kubrick film, Dr. Strangelove struggled to keep himself from issuing a certain salute. To our eye and ear, McDowell struggled to keep herself from emitting an F-bomb as she furiously described the USAID schools—the schools which aren't actually there.

We're routinely amazed by McDowell's fury when she guests on Gutfeld! In our view, this sort of thing is obvious madness, and it's part of a "night assault."

The assault at Troy was an assault of The Late Bronze Age. The current assault is an assault of The Information Age.

This assault is happening around the clock. In large part due to Blue America's self-satisfaction and endless delusions, the assault by the Gutfelds, the Musks and McDowells will be hard to defeat.


34 comments:


  1. "If the Mother Jones reporting is accurate, this youngster may sound a bit shaky."

    Mother Jones reporting sounds like a typical totalitarian Democrat smear, in an attempt to "cancel" someone.

    In the United States people have the right to read anything they want and it's no one's business what they read. End of story.

    Is Mother Jones funded by USAID? I bet it is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Seems useful to know something about the people running things with access to our sensitive data. Also, reporting on someone isn’t “canceling” them. It’s informing the public.

      Delete
    2. How hard is it to live a life with no reading comprehension? To only believe what you want to hear? Proudly living life as a weird misinformed schmuck.

      Delete

    3. @2:02 PM
      It may be useful (though probably not much) to know what university they attended.

      But digging up dirt of the "author of what he once read later said..." is not only not useful; it's a fucking disgrace. Well, normal for a modern Democrat, I suppose.

      Delete
    4. 2:54,
      What are you babbling about?
      No one on the Right ever heard of Project 25, and they don't agree with anything in it.
      Are you new to their bullshit?

      Delete
    5. "Is Mother Jones funded by USAID? I bet it is."

      You'd lose the bet, stoop.

      Delete
  2. Two approaches
    Musk: "these reports are incredible, so they should be investigated"
    Musk opponents: "these reports are incredible, so they couldn't possibly be true. We shouldn't bother to investigate them."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That’s all he’s doing, DiC, investigating? Give me a break.

      Delete
    2. The man has 400 billion dollars. There’s no private information at USAID that he couldn’t have obtained two years ago.

      Delete
    3. Good to know, Cecelia. What ride should we know about him?

      Delete
    4. You fucking fascist freaks can't seem to make up your minds, one day he is doing an "audit", without a single experienced forensic accountant involved, or he is investigating, or he is doing the hard work of cutting.
      What the fuck

      Delete
    5. What *else should we know about him?

      Delete
    6. Anonymouse 2:25pm, he can buy Mars.

      Delete
    7. Actually, he doesn't have 400 billion dollars. He has assets.

      Delete
    8. Yes. In terms of dollars, he's probably all in debt up to his eyeballs. This is how American businesses operate.

      Delete
    9. All Republican voters know debt is the problem. That's why they all purchase their homes and cars with cash.

      Delete
    10. "these reports are incredible, so they should be investigated"

      Report: DiC molests kindergarten children. Let the investigation begin.

      Oh, and DiC: prove you don't.

      Delete
    11. David: I recommend reading Kafka's The Trial. It's a literary treatment of your inane posts.

      Delete
    12. Interesting point, Hector. Your example shows an incredible accusation with no evidence that doesn't deserve to be investigated. But, what about incredible accusations with some evidence although not conclusive. IMO those should be investigated.

      Social Security is an example. Social Security records show that 6.5 million people in the U.S. have reached the ripe old age of 112. Should this be investigated? Of course. As the AP says, "The internal watchdog’s report does not document any fraudulent or improper payments to people using these Social Security numbers. But it raises red flags that it could be happening."

      BTW finding a practical way to investigate millions of questionable SS payments looks like a very difficult job. Maybe one of Musk's young geniuses can devise a practical way to do it.

      Delete
    13. DiC,

      let me see if I understand your answer. Is it yes, you believe you should be investigated, based on the report I cited?

      Delete
    14. Hector-- there is no evidence that I molested children
      There IS evidence that millions of SS records are incorrect.

      Delete
    15. What were you saying about those boy-toy geniuses working for Mush?

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    16. "Hector-- there is no evidence that I molested children"
      LOL.

      Delete
    17. David,
      File election papers, before the cops close in.
      They can't charge you with a crime, if you're running for political office. It's true, 76 million bigots told me so.

      Delete
    18. Being a Democrat is much easier, and helps much better.

      Delete
  3. It's interesting how Soros-bot farms switch -- on the fly -- their hatred from one character to another.

    It feels like Soros-bots must have Musk-hate-mongered for years now, but it's been just a couple of weeks. Quite amusing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When you see a drug addict who bought the Presidency and Congress for a measly $300M (well less than1% of his wealth), and then takes over the Government in a plutocratic autogolpe, sane people maybe switch their positions. Cultists keep living the dream. As long as "those" people have it worse, it's all good no matter how many ways they are getting screwed. Fucking weirdos the compliant ones.

      Delete

    2. I never heard of a Soros-bot farm. I have seen plenty of evidence of Russian bot disinformation bot-farms however. You can't go on X anymore without running into armies of Russian disinformation bots. That is why I quit.

      Delete
  4. Why doesn't Musk start off with the Pentagon where all the real waste and graft is?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Real waste and graft is everywhere.

      Delete
    2. Let's put the Republican Party on the stand, and shake the waste and graft out of them.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete
    Replies
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      Delete