MONDAY, APRIL 28, 2025
...it was REGO all over again: As you may know, Al Gore did the special guest spot on Friday night's Real Time.
We don't get HBO around here. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet Archive, you can watch CNN's Saturday night rebroadcast of the interview simply by clicking here.
We were glad to see Al looking and sounding good. All in all, we think it's better to avoid asking about the vastly destructive "Al Gore said he invented the Internet" press corps scam, even in the way Bill did.
Soon, it was down to Musk! As you can see by clicking here, that exchange started like this:
MAHER (4/25/25): I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Department of Government Efficiency, because I certainly remember—you didn't use that title, but you could have. You did something very similar—could you just compare and contrast for the class?
GORE: Yeah, thanks for asking. We had a project called Reinventing Government—REGO, they called it—and it was actually quite successful by pretty broad consent, by bipartisan analysis. And we had the benefit of doing it over seven years...
"We used a scalpel, not a chainsaw," Gore eventually said. For the record, we'd probably stay away from comparisons to Elon Musk too!
Looking back at the way the leading authority recalls the undertaking, we were surprised to see what the project's formal name had been:
National Partnership for Reinventing Government
The National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) was a U.S. government reform initiative launched in 1993 by Vice President Al Gore. Its goal was to make the federal government "work better, cost less, and get results Americans care about." The initiative aimed to streamline processes, cut bureaucracy (with a focus on overhead costs beyond issues addressable by statute), and implement innovative solutions. NPR was active until 1998.
During its five years, it catalyzed significant changes in the way the federal government operates, including the elimination of over 100 programs, the elimination of over 250,000 federal jobs, the consolidation of over 800 agencies, and the transfer of institutional knowledge to contractors. NPR introduced the use of performance measurements and customer satisfaction surveys, and encouraged the use of technology including the Internet. NPR is recognized as a success and had a lasting impact according to government officials who worked on or were influenced by it under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
Background
In March 1993, President Bill Clinton stated that he planned to "reinvent government," declaring that "Our goal is to make the entire federal government less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment." Clinton assigned the project to Gore with a six-month deadline to develop the plan. The National Performance Review (NPR) released its first report in September 1993...
[...]
The partnership was announced during Clinton's address on March 3, 1993, to a joint session of the United States Congress. This initiative was a reboot of the National Performance Review, and consisted of a six-month efficiency review spearheaded by U.S. Vice President Al Gore. After preparing the report, Gore led an effort that evolved into the longest-running and arguably most successful reform effort in U.S. history.
And so on from there, in detail.
In September 1993, Gore did a widely discussed spot with David Letterman to unveil the project. To see the whole thing, click here.
Roughly three minutes in, you'll see Dave try to get Al to talk trash about Dan Quayle, with whom he had served in both the House and the Senate.
"We were good friends," the vice president said. "I've avoided piling on."
Full disclosure! Elsewhere, in award winning fashion, we've described the magical night, in June 1969, when we were present with Al and Tipper and NAME WITHHELD as the four of us discovered an amazing new syndicated TV program.
The amazing new program was Hee Haw! Al said we'd get to the Opry someday, but given "how way leads on to way," it turned out that we never did.
In 1999 and 2000, the mainstream press corps spent two years pretending that Candidate Gore kept making crazy statements. Now that several high officials do make incessant crazy remarks, the mainstream press corps has largely said this about that:
Nothing to look at! Just move along!
Gore’s efforts bear no resemblance to Musk or Doge. Musk was not vp, his team are entirely unqualified, who knows what their real goals are.
ReplyDeleteSomerby is an idiot to make this comparison. So is Gore for going on Maher’s show at all.
In two generations wherever leftists controlled institutions, all the names of top female athletes or any white male of distinction will have been systematically disappeared.
ReplyDeleteA Princeton scientific department had displayed photographs of all the previous department chairs for the last 70 years-all white men, many of them Jewish. One day, all the pictures disappeared. The administration had removed them from the wall because someone found it objectionable that all these white men should be staring down at them. And yet, a number of those men were key in bringing black students to Princeton in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. But none of that history matters: it's just a bunch of whites faces, so they removed all the photographs, and no one objected—no one.
who the fuck cares?
DeleteWell at least one weirdo is pitching a fit about it.
DeleteThey didn't use a scalpel or any other tool. Their project failed on purpose. Now the same losers squeal when someone finally starts slashing the bloat. Too bad. We're getting it done.
ReplyDeletedo you believe your own bullshit?
DeleteAnonymouse flying monkey 10:01pm, this is so very deceitful and stupid, even coming from a poo-throwing anonymouse flying monkey. There’s a stark contrast between supporting politicians who we hope will rectify our shortcomings and a disapproving, performative clown-idol who has earned millions both here and through exploitation in China.
DeleteIt's getting harder and harder for the Right to discern what things they believe, from the things they pretend they believe.
DeleteThe Right believes in bigotry and white supremacy. That's it.
DeleteEVERYTHING else is negotiable.
The man pretending he's a woman on the internet is correct.
DeleteThere is a huge difference between what Right-wingers say, and what they believe.
And anonymouse flying monkeys believe in flinging poo. It’s the only thing they can do.
DeleteOnly white people are allowed to bitch about the nation's shortcomings.
DeleteThat's just science.
No fair.
DeleteYou aren't supposed to notice the Right is full of shit.
You aren't supposed to notice the Right is completely full of shit.
DeleteFixed for accuracy.
Anonymouse 9:45am, the anonymouse flying monkey made that claim. You’re not only fantasizing that I’m a man, you’ve morphed me into an anonymouse.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:51am, conversely, it’s a given that anonymices are.
Delete9:10,
DeleteIt feels different, because you don't want to admit Right-wingers are hypocrites.
Anonymouse 9:55am, for you to move.
DeleteA scalpel will not work today. First of all, our deficit is huge -- trillions. The Clinton/Gore deficit was small. Second the size of the waste and fraud grew from a twig to a forest of giant redwoods. Third, anything Trump does is apt to be reversed when the next Democrat is elected. Even a chainsaw cannot eliminate all the waste and fraud IMO.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of $, I suspect DOGE left REGO in the dust. In 100 days, Musk saved $160 billion. I don't know how much REGO saved in 8 years, but I'd bet that it's small percentage of the amount DOGE already saved. AFAIK Gore and Clinton never produced a dollar figure.
"The Clinton/Gore deficit was small."
DeleteAnd why was it so small?
"AFAIK Gore and Clinton never produced a dollar figure."
DeleteIf they triple-counted the costs they eliminated or counted programs that had already ended as "savings" how would you respond to that?
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DeleteThe Clinton/Gore deficit was small, because spending was low. Spending in 1997 was $1.6 billion.
DeleteThe estimate for for 2025, is $6.5 trillion.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/federal-budget-receipts-and-outlays
I am not even looking to tell the so called bean counter is using a B instead of a T. Dumb as rocks.
DeleteYou should acknowledge the error, DiC. Everyone makes mistakes, but that's a bit of a doozy.
DeleteGood pickup @6:59. But, you will notice that spending in 2025 is more than quadruple what it was in 1997.
DeleteInflation would double 1997 spending. Defense is a chunk, but not as big as I thought. The rest is simply taxing the wealthiest at too low of a rate. Thanks Laffer napkin and Ronnie Rayguns.
DeleteClinton didn't dole out massive tax cuts to the wealthy. That had a bit of an effect on the deficit.
DeleteThe MAGA cult will never, ever acknowledge that tax policy has any significant impact on the federal deficit. Just as they refuse to acknowledge that Republican administrations have underperformed in every metric economically, going back over the last 60 years. Way underperformed. Because of this, trolls like DiC have zero credibility when discussing the economy. Their blathering is best ignored.
Delete50% of spending increase by inflation, 25% increase by population growth, rest is paying interest on Bush/Trump tax cuts for wealthy who don't need it and interest on Bush forever wars. Republican spending policy is horrid.
Delete1:01 Yup. By now DiC has lost interest in his 6:17 bullshit and will be moving on to some other form of bullshit, probably about immigrant crime.
Delete"...spending in 2025 is more than quadruple what it was in 1997."
DeleteAnd GDP? It was about $8.7T in 1997. What's it looking like this year?
The Trump administration has revoked the visas of 4,000 foreign students in its first 100 days — the bulk of which have committed crimes in the US including arson, assault and robbery, The Post has learned.
ReplyDeleteMore than 90% of the rogue students who saw their visas nixed had committed crimes such as arson, wildlife and human trafficking, child endangerment, domestic abuse, DUI and robbery, a senior State Department source told The Post Monday. More than 500 of them had assault raps.
This is tragic. All of the violent predators are being driven out.
The USA.
DeleteWe rape our own.
We will be waiting for confirmation of this Post entry, by a news outlet that has credibility.
DeleteSo now that the deal is practically finished, looks like Musk made what, about a 40 billion dollar profit on buying Twitter? Amirite?
ReplyDeleteMusk bought it for $44B. What are you talking about?
DeleteSo now that the deal is practically finished, looks like Musk made what, about a 40 billion dollar profit on buying Twitter? Amirite?
DeleteUmm...no.
Robert Reich has an excellent essay on Al Gore’s climate week speech, Trump, and his efforts to undo progress toward renewable energy worldwide.
ReplyDeletehttps://robertreich.substack.com/p/gore-on-trump?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
Only one source of energy can replace fossil fuels under today's technology: nuclear. Nuclear plants can hardly be built in the US because laws and regulations allow opponents to tie up a project until money runs out. Neither Trump nor Biden nor Obama nor Clinton nor Bush did anything to end the impasse.
DeleteThe international organizations are a waste. Just an excuse for insiders to vacation in fancy hotels. They set goals that no country achieves and pat themselves on the back.
And, the make agreements requiring the US to donate huge amounts of money to other countries. Hurrah for Trump. Hurray for Trump leaving the Paris Agreement.
Also climate change gives Dems a reason to attack Reps, while ignoring the lousy job they're doing of governing. And, it's an excuse to give money to their friends.
DeleteAs usual, DiC asserts a false narrative about why nuclear reactors are economically difficult. Not a word about laws, regulations, and opponents tying up the most recent nuclear plants in the state of Georgia, which had 17 billion dollars of cost overruns.
Deletehttps://www.gpb.org/news/2023/05/25/georgia-nuclear-rebirth-arrives-7-years-late-17b-over-cost
He just makes shit up as he goes.
12:51 is more of the same.
DeleteLooks like Mao is still getting his marching orders from Putin, so I'll step in and respond to David in Cal's claims about Dems giving money to their friends.
DeleteCope, Soros-bot.
The price of wind, solar, and battery storage has plummeted while fossil fuel costs have skyrocketed. I've been to coal burning plants and coal is miserable. Can't put it in a pipe, have to unload rail, truck, or barge, store, crush, store, burn, try to collect heavy metals, and poisonous liquid hydrocarbon runoff. There is a similar set up for limestone storage and crushing with limestone powder injected for pollution control. Need about $800M or so of scrubbers, etc. Why is China installing renewable 4 times faster than us if it makes no economic sense. Why is almost all new power coming online renewable? Also how do you pay for safeguarding the 20,000 year nuclear waste. How do you secure the facilities. Are you unaware the felon has suggested the USA take control of Zaphora? Imagine 911 on nuke plants. You know nothing about nearly all new power is green, and almost none of that is nuclear. Do your own research: https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
DeleteMan you sour the propaganda.
imagine how different things could have been if there were a few less hanging chads...
ReplyDeleteThe beginning of the coup.
DeleteSupreme court autogolped in a pretty quiet manner back then. Very effective. That and all the Homeland Security - birth of ICE, spying on US citizens, tutoring innocent Muslims to death, rendering folks to be tortured on our behalf in other countries. Lefties like me had our hair on fire and now here we are because I guess OK to do to a Muslim?. With all this chaos the end result of a putsch since Goldwater had his ass handed to him. Lucky for the good guys they latched onto a demented old loon this time. Think if this idiot had his uncle at MIT's brain. Jesus we'd be in trouble.
Delete