"Journalists Are Professional Torturers!" Javier Milei Explains His Chainsaw Method of Slashing Argentina’s Bloated Bureaucracy

If you can sit through a three-hour interview of Donald Trump or JD Vance, head over to FEE to listen to Lex Fridman's 2-hour interview of Javier Milei. 

The journalists, who have vested interests and are corrupt, are professional torturers (1:18:00)

[Trump] is a true warrior! He's truly, he's a Viking! He's a Viking! He's literally a Viking! (1:19:45)

FEE's Daphne Posadas has the following comment: During

Javier Milei’s two-hour interview with Lex Fridman … Argentina’s libertarian president reflected on the first few months of his administration following his historic electoral victory on November 19, 2023.

Milei has been called many things, but his methods and philosophy thrive under scrutiny. In a free society, being questioned is both a challenge and an opportunity. What sets Milei apart is his ability to answer tough questions with logic, evidence, and, most importantly, results.

His anarchist rhetoric is—as he said—rooted in a libertarianism that has an “unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non-aggression and in defense of the rights to life, liberty, and property,” a definition championed by Alberto Benegas Lynch, Jr., and that follows John Locke’s ideas.

A Model Exported

Milei’s reforms haven’t gone unnoticed in the U.S., especially after the announcement of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

In the interview, Milei highlighted how Argentina’s Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation, led by Federico Sturzenegger, is systematically dismantling protectionism and privilege by eliminating 1 to 5 economic restrictions daily.

This approach is catching attention worldwide, as Musk and Ramaswamy have hinted at adapting this “chainsaw” strategy. Ramaswamy recently posted on X: “A reasonable formula to fix the U.S. government: Milei-style cuts, on steroids.”

A reasonable formula to fix the U.S. government: Milei-style cuts, on steroids.

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 18, 2024

The Chainsaw Reforms

If there’s one image that defined Milei’s 2023 campaign, it’s the chainsaw. He carried a real chainsaw to his rallies, chanting “¡Motosierra! ¡Motosierra!” (Spanish for “chainsaw”) as a symbol of his promise to slash Argentina’s bloated bureaucracy.

When Milei took office, Argentina’s inflation was out of control, climbing at almost 1% per day. Fixing the fiscal deficit became his top priority, knowing nothing else would work without a solution on that front. In just a few months, he made drastic changes: cutting over 50,000 government jobs, shutting down more than half of the ministries, slashing regulations, and removing subsidies. …/…

Milei: A Former Academic

As a former economics professor, Milei excels at breaking down complex economic concepts. Early in the interview, he provided a roadmap for those interested in understanding Austrian economics with big references: Human Action by Ludwig von Mises and Principles of Economics by Carl Menger, two starting points for him. He also name-dropped other thinkers, including Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jesús Huerta de Soto, Juan Ramón Rallo, Philipp Bagus, and Walter Block—a quick guide to both Anglo and Hispanic perspectives on libertarian thought. …/…

Key Takeaways

There are two main takeaways from Milei’s interview with Fridman. First, Milei knows what he’s talking about. Too many politicians don’t really understand economics, but Milei clearly does. He doesn’t just memorize numbers; he explains the reasoning behind his decisions, and it makes sense. Second, market-driven reforms can deliver results. Contrary to popular belief or experts’ advice, these changes don’t require decades to show their impact.

Will these reforms catch on all the way to the White House? Only time will tell. …/…

If you cannot, or do not want to, listen to the entire thing, there is an outline of 18 subjects (such as 38:05 Poverty - 44:37 Corruption - 53:14 Donald Trump - 1:20:56 US and Argentina relations - or even 1:28:05 Messi vs Maradona), where you can jump to the issue of your choice… 

On peut aussi lire une partie de l'élocution en français…

Staggering Overlap Between States Kamala Won and States with Little to No ID Requirement

Elon Musk tweeted the [above] the other day

Over at Instapundit's Substack, Glenn Reynolds opines — quite rightly and to no one's surprise — that Voter ID law and election integrity should be top priority in new Congress.

 … the GOP should make a national photo ID requirement for federal elections a top priority in the next Congress.  And it should go further.

There are other tools, used in countries we’ve liberated but not in our own country, like dyeing people’s fingers purple so they can’t vote more than once.  And of course, maintaining trustworthy voter rolls, so that when someone shows up claiming to be entitled to vote, there’s good reason to believe that they actually are.  If a person shows up with a photo ID, and it matches a person who is entitled to vote, the odds are very good that they are who they say they are, and they are entitled to vote.

Rules in other countries are generally stricter than what prevails in the United States,as this summary from RealClearPolitics illustrates:

Seventy-four percent of European countries entirely ban absentee voting for citizens who reside domestically. Another 6% limit it to those hospitalized or in the military, and they require third-party verification and a photo voter ID. Another 15% require a photo ID for absentee voting.

Similarly, government-issued photo IDs are required to vote by 33 nations in the 37-member Organistion for Economic Co-operation and Development (which has considerable European overlap). Only the UK, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia currently do not require IDs. Of those outliers: 

•  … In some countries, even driver’s licenses aren’t considered authoritative enough forms of voter identity verification. The Czech Republic and Russia require passports or military-issued IDs and others use national identity cards. Others go even further: Colombia and Mexico each require a biometric ID to cast a ballot.

  Many countries in Europe and beyond have learned the hard way that fraud can result from looser voting regimes -- and they have instituted stricter voting measures in direct response to it.

• In the United States, of course, even basic safeguards are wildly controversial among Democrats.  The photo ID requirement, for example, though consistently upheld by courts, is always denounced in the press as racist and claimed to be unconstitutional.  But it’s also favored by huge majorities of, you know, actual voters.

Of course, readers of No Pasarán know that we have been reporting on the same thing as RealClearPolitics for years, now:

• Of the 47 countries in Europe today — the nations and the continent that the Democrats are always telling us to emulate — 46 of them currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote
• Joe Biden, Why Are You Calling Denmark a White Supremacist Country? And You, Barack Obama: Why Are You Calling Africa a Racist Continent?
• Our élites constantly lecture everyone about "disinformation," about "big lies", etc; They're the biggest liars of all, with zero accountability
• The January 6 Protest Summarized in One Single Sentence
• Déjà Vu All Over Again in the Banana Republic of Biden: No, the Democrats did not run better campaigns; they cheated, as usual
• Isn’t it strange that in Florida, with all those strict rules against cheating, the GOP red tsunami happened as predicted? The Democrats have again fixed, rigged, and stolen an election
• Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud; Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy
• If the Democrats learned anything from their 2016 debacle it’s that they didn’t cheat nearly enough
• Democrats don't support voter fraud; they just worry about disenfranchising the deceased
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression
• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Voter Fraud: A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"
• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored
• Let's Stop Using the Words "Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election"; It's Unprofessional Journalism

"Do You Hear Yourself?!" Besides Martha, Which Other Leftists Deserves JD's Question?

I think both a question mark and an exclamation mark are necessary to drive through JD Vance's reply to ABC's Martha Raddatz. Simply because, like "WTF?!", it is as much — if not more — an exclamation as a question. One which is akin to  "For the love of God, Martha, do you even hear what garbage you yourself are blurting out?!"). Whatever the case, Damian Bennett takes the reply even further and disseminates it throughout the progressives' leftosphere, scattering it to all corners of their inner world:

Let us begin.

Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s wife, Gwen, said she left her windows open to “smell the burning tires” during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots because she felt it was a “touchstone” moment.

Keep your windows open as the sweet sweet smell of napalm in the morning wafts in from the DNC and the blue cabals and lefty media and the DTDS asylums all going up in flames, and bookmark this...

‘Martha, Do You Hear Yourself?’ JD Vance Shuts Down Martha Raddatz Over Venezuela Migrant Gangs October 13, 2024

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC News: “Senator Vance, I’m going to stop you because I know exactly what happened. I’m going to stop you.The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complex — apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems.”
JDV: “Only — Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’s open border? ... I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.”

...edit the quære accordingly. Strap in. It's been a long road to N5.

• “Martha Joe, do you hear yourself?” March 6, 2024
  JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host & say-absolutely-anything shill, person of privilege: “This is — and I don't — you know what I don't really — start your tape right now because I'm about to tell you the truth. And ‘F’ you if you can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is THE BEST BIDEN EVER. Not a close second. And I have known him for years. The Brzezinski have known him for 50 years. If it weren't the truth I wouldn't say it.”
  [NB: 114 days later Joe had this to say: “In 2024, failure is not an option. So who I love, who I respect, who I revere for their work and their duty to service over their lifetime really is not relevant. It's not relevant for any of us. It's not relevant for Democrat leaders. it's not relevant for anyone. The question is can -- we know Joe Biden can govern. ... He can run the White House. He can run the country effectively...but can he run for president in 2024?”]
  
• EPIC JOE [Past blast. Strap in.] November 21, 2023: “[Trump] is not a normal candidate. He's running to end American democracy as we know it. He's an authoritarian who a court, ah, in in Colorado two days ago ruled that that he led an insurrection against the United States government. He's charged with leading schemes to help overthrow the United States government. ... When people go, 'Ooh, you can't compare him to any past Nazi leaders. You can't compare him to this past Nazi leader or that past fascist leader, because he hasn't done it.' Wah, what hasn't he done? He hasn't done the things the American judicial system did not allow him to do last time, but may very well allow him to do this time — OR — a judicial system that will be ignored by Donald Trump and ran [sic] over by Donald Trump to create the greatest Constitutional crisis of our lifetimes. Just because he hasn't done it yet, doesn't mean he WON'T do it when he gets a chance to do it! And if he is voted into office then a lot these people that are talking about literal or figurative or whatever the hell they're saying -- you're going to look like idiots. Uh, because he will do, he will get away with, he will imprison, he will execute whoever he's allowed to imprison, execute, uh uh uh drive from the country. Just look at his past. It’s not really hard to read. ... ”
  AL SHARPTON, MSNBC house negro & race grifter, person of privilege: “No doubt about it.”
• “Martha Bobby, do you hear yourself?” March 9, 2024
  ROBERT DE NIRO, actor & attention queen, person of privilege: “I can’t see any good in [Trump]. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing redeemable in him. ... If he is, he wins the election. He. You [speaking to Bill Maher] won’t be on this show anymore. He’ll come looking for me. You know, there’ll be. There’ll be things that happen that none of us can imagine. That’s what happens in that kind of a dictatorship, which is what he says. Let’s believe and take him at his word.”
  
• “Martha Keith, do you hear yourself?”  March 9, 2024
  KEITH OLBERMANN, chômeur & professional nasty man, person of privilege: [Tweet (since deleted) responding to Biden-Harris HQ post of a video captioned: “Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated.”] “There’s always hope.”  [NB: President Trump went on to survive two assassination attempts.]
  
• “Martha Rachel, do you hear yourself?” June 11, 2024
  RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show, hoaxster, person of privilege: “I’m worried about the country broadly if we put someone in power who is openly avowing that he plans to build camps to hold millions of people, and to “root out” what he’s described in subhuman terms as his “enemy from within.” Again, history is helpful here. He’s not joking when he says this stuff, and we’ve seen what happens when people take power proclaiming that kind of agenda. ... For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.”
  
• “Martha David, do you hear yourself?” July 2, 2024
  DAVID AARONOVITCH, BBC Radio 4 host, person of privilege: “If I was [sic] Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.”   [Tweet since deleted. NB: President Trump went on to survive two assassination attempts.]
  
• “Martha Joy, do you hear yourself?” July 4, 2024
  JOY REID, MSNBC The Reid Out hostess & bitter but self-unaware plantation negro, person of privilege: “Y’all just tell me who the nominee is going to be. Let me know when you guys are finished fighting amongst yourselves who I got to vote for in November to keep Hitler out of the White House. That’s all I wanna know — who I got vote for to keep Hitler out of the White House.”
• “Martha Whoopi, do you hear yourself?” July 9, 2024
  WHOOPI GOLDBERG, ABC The View co-host, person of privilege: “I don’t care if [Biden]’s pooped his pants. I don’t care if he can’t put a sentence together. Show me he can’t do the job, and then I’ll say, OK — maybe it’s time to go. ... So yeah, I have poopy days all the time, all the time. I step in so much poo you can’t even imagine.” [NB: This said after the June27 Trump-Biden debate.]
  
• “Martha James, do you hear yourself?” August 15, 2024
  JAMES CARVILLE, Corporal Cueball one-hit wonder Democratic strategist, person of privilege: “It’s really about the misogyny and the racism that drives the thing, and we got to recognize that. It’s not about any policy prescription. And the reason I suspect that most of these people [scil., Republicans] describe themselves as pro-Israel is because the Jews are whiter than the Palestinians, which I think drives a lot of what they are.”
• Corporal Cueball August 26, 2024: “I really feel sorry for the Kennedy family because I will remind them, you can pick your friends, you can’t pick your relatives. And if Bobby Kennedy lived in a more humane country, they would have him in a nice rubber room and you know, three hots and a cot and take care of this guy. He has no business being out on the street mixing and mingling with people. But this is where we are in this country. We have a mental health crisis and he’s at the top of it.”
  
• Corporal Cueball September 27, 2024: “I really think he is such an odious and despicable man that he should not be accorded the most basic courtesies that one human being would extend to another human being. I think he is a grotesque, immoral man who is incapable of understanding anything or anybody that’s not him. And I’ll just be very honest, I cannot stand the son of a bitch. ... We’re not going to accord this rotten mothaf*cka one iota of humanity or respect because he has given up any idea that he should be afforded this.”
  
• Corporal Cueball October 14, 2024: “Just from what we learned in the last 48 hours. We had General Flynn say that the gates of Hell are going to reign on Trump’s enemies when he wins. We had General Milley say that he is a fascist to his core. We heard Trump on Fox this morning say he’s going to use the military to round up his political enemies. Trump has announced that he will be giving a speech at Madison Square Garden on October 27. Please Google Madison Square Garden February 10, 1939, and see what happened there. They are telling you exactly what they are going to do. They are telling you we are going to institute a fascist regime.”  [NB: Cueball uses subliminal Hitler trigger 94 and 29 days, respectively, after two separate assassination attempts on DJT.]
• “Martha Jamie, do you hear yourself?” August 19, 2024
  JAMIE RASKIN, Congressman (MDCD8-D) & impeachment fetishist, person of privilege: “When I say we will support a free and fair election, no, we we're not going to allow them to steal it in the states, or steal it in the Department of Justice or steal it with any other election official in the country.”
• “Martha Rob, do you hear yourself?” September 10, 2024
  ROB REINER, actor & stuff, person of privilege: “For our Democracy to survive, two things have to happen. Donald Trump needs to be Convicted for Jan. 6th and there can be no Third Party Candidate. ... [Republicans] are only interested in power. And they will do anything to get the power. And they are willing to kill, literally kill, to get the power. You can’t have a conversation with them.”
• “Martha Stacey, do you hear yourself?” September 25, 2024
  STACEY PLASKETT, non-voting delegate (VI-D) & attention queen, person of privilege: [Having a partisan orgasm during a session of House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.] “The outcome of hearings of this committee have supported my claim that from the very beginning of the creation of this select subcommittee, that this has been the gaslighting to the nth degree, a tremendous projection of the highest order, that the evidence is the words of their leader, their would-be Führer, Donald Trump, and Project 2025, a 900-page manifesto of a transformed America.” [NB: Plaskett uses subliminal Hitler trigger 75 and 10 days, respectively, after two separate assassination attempts on DJT.]
• “Martha Gina, do you hear yourself?” September 25, 2024
  GINA RAIMONDO, Biden-Harris clueless Commerce Secretary, person of privilege: “How did we get here? Let's extinguish him [Trump] for good. ... Let's just get it done.” [NB: Raimondo uses eliminationist language 5 and 10 days, respectively, after two separate assassination attempts on DJT.]
• “Martha Maria, do you hear yourself?” September 30, 2024
  JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC: “Vice President Harris at 54%. ... Why is the Democratic share of the Latino vote shrinking?”
  MARIA HINOJOSA, NPR hostess, nonentity: “What I said to you when we asked the question was, Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids. ... [T]hey don’t want to be identified with all of those other immigrants that Donald Trump speaks so badly of, including me as a Mexican immigrant, so they’re like, ‘Let’s be with him.’ Those numbers, they could cost Kamala Harris the election.” [NB: NBC News exit polls: KA-mala finished with 53% Hispanic voters, Trump received 45% of the vote, a 13-point jump from 2020 and a record high for a Republican presidential nominee; Trump won Latino men 54%-44% over Harris.]
• “Martha Spike, do you hear yourself?” October 21, 2024
  SPIKE LEE, filmmaker & stuff, person of privilege: “Well, I’m voting my sister, the vice president. She used the language, the word forward, not backwards. This guy, I don’t call him by his name, I say Agent Orange and the stuff that he is saying, he’s not being shy, he is saying exactly what he wants to do if he becomes the next President of the United States. He said there should be no more elections. ... It’s not a joke, it’s not funny, this is like life and death.”
  
• “Martha Amanda, do you hear yourself?” November 9, 2024
  JOY REID, MSNBC: “Do you recommend, just from a psychological standpoint, being around [family and friends Trump voters]? We've got the holidays coming up.”
  AMANDA CALHOUN, Yale psychiatrist & “mental health expert”, person of privilege: “I think there is a societal norm that if somebody is your family that, they are entitled to your time. And I think the answer is absolutely not. So if you are going through a situation where you have family members, close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you, like what you said, against your livelihood, it is completely fine to not be around those people and tell them why. To say I have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my very livelihood and I’m not going to be around you this holiday.”
• “Martha Jonathan, do you hear yourself?” November 11, 2024
  JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC anchor & house negro, person of privilege: “The thing that I’m grappling with is that someone was elected who ran a campaign that was openly hostile — openly racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, transphobic… [H]ow do we move forward when we know there are people in their families who voted for him [Trump]? … How should we deal with those neighbors, co-workers, family members?”
• “Martha Laura, do you hear yourself?” November 9, 2024
  LAURA HELMUTH, Scientific American Editor-In-Chief & bad science propagandist, person of privilege: “I apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of f*cking fascists ... Solidarity to everyone whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high-school classmates are celebrating the early [presidential election] returns because f*ck them to the moon and back” [Tweets since deleted.]
  
• “Martha Sheryl, do you hear yourself?” November 9, 2024
  SHERYL LEE RALPH, Wicked actress & POC diva, person of privilege: “Now we really see America, we really see what America is all about, and it’s frightening.”
• “Martha Rachel, do you hear yourself?” November 13, 2024
  RACHEL ZEGLER, Disney POC Snow White actress & self-unaware diva, person of privilege: [Across several tweets (without cap shift).] “i find myself speechless in the midst of this. another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world i do not want to live in. leaning us towards a world that will be hard to raise my daughter in. leaning us towards a world that will force her to have a baby she doesn't want....may trump supporters and trump voters and trump himself never know peace. ... there is also a deep, deep sickness in this country that is shown in the sheer amount of people who showed up for this man who threatens our democracy. it is terrifying the number of people who stand behind what this man preaches. ... there is no help, no counsel, in any of them. ... get off elon's app btw. ... okay. that's all...i will love through these four years as best i can. f*ck donald trump.”

Holy Mary! Enough! It just goes on and on and on and on. [Break for a bit of fresh air.] 

[Several hours later.] No matter the intelligence level, the very sad thing about being stupid, being a ridiculous person, is that with a little effort one need not be. Make the little effort, but few stupid, ridiculous people do. There are at least two generations going to the grave stupid. They weren't born stupid. Many are quite possibly highly intelligent. Sadly, these two generations have been taught not to think, yes, intelligentia possibilia undisturbed by thinking. Instead they have learned to vogue, to vogue for applause and smiles and clicks and likes from their fellow possibly highly intelligent voguers. When native intelligence, great or limited, becomes invested in stupidity, stakes its fortunes in stupidity, it becomes hostage to stupidity, and the intelligence forms a trauma bond with its captor. The captor becomes consolatory, the gaol a safe place to be, a nice place to be. Heart emojis, likes, follows, clicks, monetized views, cat videos -- two generations going to the grave stupid. Ah, but within the claque, stupid and happy.

If you are to meet N5 traumatized relatives or friends over the holidays -- at a well-appointed Thanksgiving dinner table, around a festive heavily decorated Christmas tree, clinking flutes of Biden-flated Verdi Spumante on NYE, or wherever, whenever -- emulate John Milton touring the Vatican, no talk of religion (or politics) unless another brings it up for dispute. But once assailed, have at it hammer and tong. Make them cry.