The Musk Plutocracy
The New York Times reports on Elon Musk's unprecedented intrusion deep into the mechanics of the Federal Government. The world's richest [s]dick[/s] man is acting unilaterally with apparently zero government oversight, slashing and burning as he sees fit. He's declared that US A.I.D. (American International Development) should be unilaterally dissolved and the remnants placed under the control of the State Department. Not only does this affect the livelihoods of many dedicated public servants, but it severely impacts a huge numb er of vitally important services all over the world (the sites of which have also gone dark, thanks Elon. We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper, Mr. Musk gloated on X at 1:54 a.m. Monday. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.)
But, remember, this guy has never been elected to any public office. Since buying X (then Twitter) he's become a conduit for and mouthpiece of a lot of right-wing conspiracy-based nonsense, praising neo-Nazi movements and spreading all manner of lies. And he's careening around Washington like an unguided missile. People should be on the streets over it.
In Elon Musks first two weeks in government, his lieutenants gained access to closely held financial and data systems, casting aside career officials who warned that they were defying protocols. They moved swiftly to shutter specific programs and even an entire agency that had come into Mr. Musks cross hairs. They bombarded federal employees with messages suggesting they were lazy and encouraging them to leave their jobs.
Empowered by President Trump, Mr. Musk is waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy one that has already had far-reaching consequences.
Mr. Musks aggressive incursions into at least half a dozen government agencies have challenged congressional authority and potentially breached civil service protections.
Top officials at the Treasury Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development who objected to the actions of his representatives were swiftly pushed aside. And Mr. Musks efforts to shut down U.S.A.I.D., a key source of foreign assistance, have reverberated around the globe.
Mr. Musk, the worlds richest man, is sweeping through the federal government as a singular force, creating major upheaval as he looks to put an ideological stamp on the bureaucracy and rid the system of those who he and the president deride as the deep state.
The rapid moves by Mr. Musk, who has a multitude of financial interests before the government, have represented an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual.
The speed and scale have shocked civil servants, who have been frantically exchanging information on encrypted chats, trying to discern what is unfolding.
Senior White House staff members have at times also found themselves in the dark, according to two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. One Trump official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Musk was widely seen as operating with a level of autonomy that almost no one can control.
Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies, flanked by a cadre of young engineers, drawn in part from Silicon Valley. He has moved beds into the headquarters of the federal personnel office a few blocks from the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation, so he and his staff, working late into the night, could sleep there, reprising a tactic he has deployed at Twitter and Tesla.
This time, however, he carries the authority of the president, who has bristled at some of Mr. Musks ready-fire-aim impulses but has praised him publicly.
Hes a big cost-cutter, Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday. Sometimes we wont agree with it and well not go where he wants to go. But I think hes doing a great job. Hes a smart guy.
But, remember, this guy has never been elected to any public office. Since buying X (then Twitter) he's become a conduit for and mouthpiece of a lot of right-wing conspiracy-based nonsense, praising neo-Nazi movements and spreading all manner of lies. And he's careening around Washington like an unguided missile. People should be on the streets over it.
Comments (684)
In a democracy there is no way to limit government spending. Only an entity who does not answer to the people can do that. It's kind of bizarre that it's Elon Musk doing it, but there you have it.
This fault in democracy is something the human race has yet to resolve.
No, it's true. The US has struggled with the problem for decades. There is no solution within the framework of democracy.
Quoting Wayfarer
I doubt it.
There's a bunch of those. They're all pretty funny.
So lets get rid of it.
I believe we're watching the emergence of an authoritarian state spanning North America and Greenland. This kind of thing happens all the time in history books. I've never seen it in real life though.
I feel like the USA I grew up in is gone. It seems alien to me, but I think Trump's vision of securing Canada and Greenland is genius. I know how weird that sounds, but it is, partly because of climate change and partly because the Yellowstone caldera is due to blow up.
The presence of Musk, Vance, and Vought signals that visionaries are gathering around Trump. Musk wants the US government to help SpaceX. Both Vought and Vance want dictatorship. A dictatorial USA will be stronger and more flexible than the old version. That's why all democracies eventually becomes monarchies, historically.
Thanks for the blessing. I am having a nice life.
...and to his substance providers.
Quoting frank
That's completely ridiculous. The US government doesn't even have a health service, and barely an education service. And the resolution of the problem is anyway completely automatic, and built into the financial system. If the government overspends, inflation balances the books by effectively reducing everyone's wealth and earnings. That regime is then liable to be removed at the next election.
Quoting Wayfarer
Here is the alarm bell ringing in my ear. The climate catastrophe is eating your wealth, burning, flooding, blowing away, desiccating your assets faster than you can increase them. This results in some desperation amongst the electorate and makes them vulnerable to populist snake oil salesmen with promises of easy solutions involving making some other pay.
Now that you have elected said populists to power, you find that their purpose is to manipulate the markets by random acts of economic destruction that because they have inside knowledge of, they can profit from big time at your expense.
Such acts of destruction include the whole fabric of government , but prioritising anything relating to "checks and balances", "healthy and safety", or "quality control". This is how disaster economics works; most people are impoverished and immiserated, while a very few celebrate with a nazi victory salute.
Hysterical, hypocritical, etc.
I wish the admins would start to crack down on these low quality posts that amount to nothing more than coping over a lost election.
Grow up.
But not you somehow? Just, other people, but not you. No, of course not, you're simply too smart for that to have happened. It's simply impossible. Ah, the human ego. As flexible as it is frail. Willing and able to contort itself into positions previously thought unfathomable.
Quoting Wayfarer
Any system that doesn't have proper safeguards is bound to such a fate, surely? I mean, it'd be foolish to think a vulnerable system would be eternal and never be exploited, wouldn't it? As a religious "good will prevail" type of person I naturally don't believe the worst outcomes you might imagine will ever be allowed to happen. Alas, I'll never be able to prove it. The irony of faith, eh? :grin:
If you don't believe a system was designed to withstand and inevitably survive abuse and the inevitable nature of those who its meant to coalesce with, did you really believe in it at all? :chin: :eyes:
I could just as easily have used 'we'. You can stop projecting now.
That's fair but it makes it seem to a person in the heat of debate that you're implying there's some "better" almost "intrinsic" "way of life" you seemingly have been blessed to be under, some deep unyielding freedom that is exclusive to you and only you and those reading should seek to understand or become knowledgeable of.
You can't just pass off these real and valid concerns by using recently-cheapened and now "buzz words" of psychological flavor as if it elevates you above the underlying logic just because it has that affect on the average person. You are not an average person, I can tell, and this is not an average place. Therefore, my sentiment and corresponding concern were both wholly appropriate.
Here's a little education, to tame some of those strong emotions.
And Trump's approval rating is at an all time high. This is what Americans want.
Thank you
:smile: Cutting costs is a veil for eliminating opposition.
As long as the Soviet Union appeared to be an existential threat, the US government could be consistent over time. As a lone superpower, there are no limits on anything.
You guys are still not convinced climate change is an existential threat? Well I guess we'll find out the hard way if there are limits or not.
Why do you think he wants Greenland and Canada?
Is the problem not enough democracy, or too much?
No cabinet member wins an election for their post, nor are they generally named until after the election. Historically, it's the appointees who have won elections (generally senators and representatives) who tend to be, at least on paper, the least qualified to run their departments. When someone gets chosen who isn't a politician, it's actually been the rule that they tend to be the ones that are more likely to be career civil servants or otherwise experts in their department's purview. Whereas politicians are often tapped as a political favor, or simply because they are popular.
Donald Trump won the most votes in the most recent election. He won pretty decisively; his party also took over the House and Senate. Right now, a generic Republican is polling 8+ points ahead of the Democrats. Polls also indicate that the average American views the Democratic party more unfavorably on average. Trump himself has a significantly higher approval rating than Congress or President Biden when he left (although he is benefiting from the usual start of term boost).
If President Trump and many of his appointees are terrible picks for leadership (I think they absolutely are), it hardly seems that the problem here is lack of democracy. In terms of what Musk has done, Trump was very up front about wanting to gut foreign aid. People voted knowing that; it wasn't a secret. And, while it is bad policy, gutting foreign aid is broadly popular and has been for some time. So again, this is in line with democratic preferences, not against it.
There is certainly a greater democratic mandate for gutting foreign aid than Biden's massive expansion of immigration. He also used executive power alone for that. It's a deeply unpopular policy position. While people generally disagree about how much to decrease migration, actually increasing it polls worse nationally than Harris did in rural Southern counties. It isn't remotely popular. But Biden's expansion wasn't minor either. It was held up by COVID and court cases, but once it got going net migration ended up significantly higher across his one term (really more like half a term due to COVID) than it was during the entirety of the Bush II or Obama administrations. Adding 10.4 million residents is a much more drastic policy shift than rolling up a $40B budget into another department and reducing it, by any measure, and this was done without any legislative input. DEI expansion is a similar case, and polling suggests ending it is more popular than sustaining it.
For better or worse, the President has an extremely wide latitude for policy decisions, one that has only grown as Congress's disfunction has led to a long series of Presidents getting away with major policy changes by simply instructing federal departments to not enforce existing laws. Yet if anything, this is also more democratic, because turnout for Presidential elections is much higher and Congress is extremely far from proportional representation, not to mention gerrymandering, the filibuster, etc.
Easily the most disastrous Trump proposal is to make virtually all federal employees political appointees. Yet this is advocated for precisely because it is "more democratic." "Get rid of unelected government officials and make the state responsive to the electorate!"
Of course, a strong, independent bureaucracy is generally seen as one of the three or four core pillars of a successful modern state. Yet this is in large part precisely because popular policies are often bad policies, and the independent bureaucracy has a better idea about how to effectively manage their sector of the state and economy.
So, I'm not sure if the problem with a populist demagogue is a dearth of democracy. People knew who Trump was and what he planned to do and they voted for him. Obviously, the Democrats own abject failure to run a good campaign/candidate was part of their problem. However, a big part of Trump's win was because people were positively motivated for him.
This is factually incorrect. The US has government provided healthcare for senior citizens and the poor. These are extremely large programs, particuarly because seniors consume a very disproportunate share of all healthcare. To Frank's point, US government spending on healthcare alone is higher than the OECD average per capita. Obviously, the system is horrendously dysfunctional in that we have higher government outlays, and then a huge private outlay on top of this, while still having fairly poor health outcomes. Yet it certainly isn't for lack of spending money and racking up debt.
In the US, K-12 education is handled at the local level. The US spends more per student than every OECD nation except for Switzerland. Federal spending is low because the feds mostly just do regulations and grant awards such as IDEA (for special ed), Title I (for low income), etc. The education system is comparatively much better than the healthcare system, and some US states top the world (e.g. Massachusetts is top three for all PISA categories), whereas others preform quite poorly.
But again, to Frank's point, it's not lack of spending that would be the problem here.
:up:
What was it like?
Quoting frank
Does this dream of Manifest Destiny promise to bring the old USA back?
Quoting frank
Musk and Zuckerberg run global empires whose fortunes will increase after having fellated Trump. The control of the communication environment is shrinking to the needs of predatory capitalists. MAGA is their mascot now.
It is so cute when it sits up and begs.
Step back and try to understand what's happening as if you're reading a history book. Be the psychologist, the anthropologist, the philosopher, etc...
I try to see through those lenses. But my personal and family quality of life will suffer if those changes occur. My workplace will change for the worse. My city will become more fearful and less diverse.
When you said that your old world had disappeared, you sounded excited by the prospect of a new one.
I loved what I thought the USA stood for. I'm broken hearted. This isn't really the place for that kind of expression though. It would be like crying into a pool of fucking sharks.
Very sane post, as always. Trump is a demagogue, of that there is not a shred of doubt. But Elon Musk's activities are another dimension to his disastrous rule. Do peruse that article linked in the OP.
The thought has crossed my mind. If so, that is a particularly odious kind of evil: at the one hand, deny climate change as strenuously as possible, dooming most life on the planet to catastrophe. One the other hand, profit from it, by any possible means.
Words fail me.
But it does have layers of safeguards, very strict security requirements. But Musk and his troupe just barge in, basically saying 'Don't you know who we are??' and demanding access. Some of the Musk personnel didn't even have the level 1 security clearances required to gain authorisation. The story relates that some of the senior officials in those departments that tried to refuse Musk access were told that US Marshalls would be called and they would be arrested unless they complied. This is the outrage of it - there has been no vetting, no Congressional approval, no real authority beyond Musk invoking the support of Trump. (There's also a story circulating that some of those who tried to refuse access to Musk will now be facing indictment for interferring with Government enquiries.)
"Fast fact: As of November 2022, Medicaid and Child's Health Insurance Program covered more than 91.7 million individuals in the United States."
Fast fact 2. The British NHS covers every citizen. The N stands for "National".
Fast fact 3. chttps://www.cnbc.com/2013/06/25/medical-bills-are-the-biggest-cause-of-us-bankruptcies-study.html
But I have already pled guilty and withdrawn my accusation.
As I've stated again and again. Elon Musk will be the most hated man in the US in the future. You see, it will be alright for the South African born billionaire to be hated even by the Trump crowd, as God-Emperor Trump cannot do anything else than his genius blessed acts. But Elon can go. Because this won't end happily, really. The man is bouncing too hard here and there.
Let's start from the basics. Musk owns a very overvalued car manufacture. Somebody now buying a Tesla will make a clear political statement. And that is bad. This is the reason just why corporate leaders usually try stay out of the media limelight. And the demand for Tesla has started to plummet dramatically. As he hasn't at all put on hold his previous business life, the way that classical a business leaders like McNamara did when becoming the Defense minister, giving the fig leaf to being in a government position, he has painted himself a clear target. And what about then SpaceX? How about it now, if SpaceX suddenly wins contracts to build rockets to Mars? Will that bring the country together as the Apollo-missions did? Will that feel like the country getting together and showing what the nation can do or will it be something else. Just ask yourself.
What basically is happening in the US is what happened in Hungary. Basically one should learn what Victor Orban has achieved in Hungary, as that would be the objective of Trump.
Here's the problem. Trump is too much mesmerized with the tariffs. Don't think that he will leave it this, to 30 days and forget about them. Nope, this is just the start and the nasty EU hasn't even been bullied yet. Usually these things work when the response IS NOT things like Canadians booing during the singing US national anthem. And in the end there will be a trade war and this will cause inflation, the "pain" that Trump is now hinting. Now what does this have to do with Elon? Everything. As he will cut things, then when things get bad, they will likely have to give aid to otherwise collapsing industries or financial institutions. So likely the cuts in the larger picture won't happen.
I guess the thinking is to make a shock and awe multifaceted attack immediately on everything and then hope that by the midterms everything will look rosy again. But that's unlikely. Elon is just so intoxicated about power that he's going all over places, even into domestic politics of other countries. That shows a lack of focus and serious breach of respect, which is typical for a billionaire who for example started manufacturing flame throwers because he was bored. But getting entangled in British and German domestic politics? Yes, you will take the center stage in a fancy ball if ogle and grope the wives of others. At first the couples might be just taken back, but soon fists will fly. It is Elon that will be the lightning rod and will take the hits. After all, he isn't part of the administration and Trump won't do anything to help others. That's not Trump.
Interesting what the views would be in a year from now.
Quoting ssu
I read an article, I think even before the election, about some lucky internet trader, who's making a small fortune selling these bumper stickers:
Quoting ssu
The media has been reporting the Republican infatuation with Orban for a long time https://wapo.st/40KD1NN. The Republican Party, or should we now say, the MAGA party, is clearly wanting to implement something similar.
And do you know that under Orban, Hungarian military has gone into Africa, into Chad specifically, perhaps to act like the Russian Africa Corps (ex-Wagner)? When typical domestic politics is boring, do something exciting!
For Orban reality set limits here. The Hungarian contingent is supposed to be from 200 to 400 strong for two years and is there to help the Chadian military (and perhaps get lucrative deals for Hungary, read Orban). That's as much as the puny Hungarian armed forces can do in another continent. But it tells something about the thinking of these people.
For Trump and Musk, what is the limit? So why not annex Greenland and Panama and talk about expanding the territory of the US? It's not so wild off, isn't it? What possible could go wrong? That Denmark would raise it's military spending to 5% to protect itself from ...whom? Equally with the DOGE, why think about contracts and Congress approved spending, when you can simply stop it on the weekend?
This is why the Republicans by becoming the loyalist MAGA party are pinning everything on Trump and Musk, and just can now observe what they are getting.
What I think might bring Trump down is what I'm expecting him to deliver: an economic mess (if not catastrophe, and let's hope not). He still thinks, to this day, that the Chinese pay the American tarrifs on their exports and nobody can persuade him otherwise. He lives in an alternative reality, one devoid of fact, but the unfortunate thing is that tens of millions of people have decided to join him there.
He will start to insist on the actions he talks about. No way to avoid that. This is why we will have the trade war. Rubio, clearly a normal Republican politician with a sane mind, will likely be pushed out at some time.
Let's look what actually has happened with Trump's idea of annexing Panama ...or more likely the Canal Zone.
Marco Rubio on his new job made his first trip to Panama:
Here the MAGA-enthusiasts will declare victory of the Trump 4D-Chess of getting Panama to "review agreements involving China and Chinese businesses" and "announced further cooperation with the U.S. on migration" as obvious victories of the new US policy. Those are policies of a conventional Republican administration, unlike the possible annexation of the Canal Zone.
What they won't care about is that Panama's president reiterated that the "country's sovereignty over the world's second busiest waterway is not up for discussion". They won't understand that there's a price to pay for making someone do something by threatening their sovereignty. Above all, notice that Rubio didn't take up in any way what Trump was talking. Just read closely the Department of State brief about the meeting with Rubio and Mulino:
OK. Is the annexation of the Canal Zone even been spoken of? NO! Such absurd ludicrous issue is not mentioned here, and what is likely simply been dropped is the Panamian insistence, which likely was said, that they have sovereignty to their own territory.
It all might go under the radar for a while, but in the end it won't do. Trump cannot tolerate that there would be "the adults in the room" that would water down his effeorts. The idea that "oh well, Trump just blurts these things out to get attention" won't fly.
Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has attacked journalists and X users for posting the names of people working with him, calling it a crime. Hes accused Treasury Department officials of breaking the law every hour of every day. And Mr. Musk has mocked Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, as hysterical.
On Monday, Mr. Musk celebrated his progress, posting he had fed the U.S. Agency for International Development, the governments lead agency for humanitarian aid, into the wood chipper.
And on Tuesday, Mr. Musk began a poll on X: Would you like DOGE to audit the IRS?
The comments show how Mr. Musk, who unlike traditional government figures rarely holds news conferences or speaks to reporters, is using his social media site as a powerful tool to promote his goals as part of the Trump administration. Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has unleashed a barrage of posts to his more than 215 million followers, promoting conspiratorial rumors about his adversaries, pressuring senators to confirm the presidents cabinet picks and weighing in on foreign elections.
On top of that, Mr. Musks account is becoming one of the few sources for information about the billionaires secretive stampede to slash the federal budget, an initiative he calls the Department of Government Efficiency.
X has given Mr. Musk an unusual avenue to showcase his unapologetically confrontational approach to cost cutting in a way that appeals to President Trumps base, tech policy experts said.
The performative aspect of this is key. Its a big part of what populism is, said Sarah Kreps, the director of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. To be able to have this very visible shake-up really is important to the constituency that rose the administration to power.
Mr. Musk and a spokeswoman for the cost-cutting initiative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Musks transformation of X into his political megaphone began when he bought the social media company in October 2022. The next year, he became the most followed person on the site. Engagement with his posts has since mushroomed, according to Xs metrics, making him the loudest voice on the platform.
Now, Mr. Musk, who is chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has charged into his new role to cut government spending, swiftly moving to transform at least half a dozen government agencies, challenging congressional authority and potentially breaching civil service protections.
His project has worked to shut down U.S.A.I.D. Leaders of the cost-cutting initiative have also pushed out top officials there and at the Treasury Department who objected to the actions of his representatives, and ended leases on government office spaces.
As part of those efforts, Mr. Musk has used his X account to critique federal agencies in his cross hairs. U.S.A.I.D. is evil and a criminal organization, Mr. Musk wrote in separate posts on Sunday.
Lawmakers including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and Mr. Schumer have accused Mr. Musk of overreach.
Early Tuesday, Mr. Musk reposted a comment by Mr. Schumer, who said Congress must stop what amounted to an unauthorized hostile takeover of the government.
Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that DOGE is doing work that really matters, Mr. Musk said in response to Mr. Schumer. This is the one shot American people have to defeat BUREAUcracy, rule of the bureaucrats, and restore DEMOcracy, rule of the people.
Mr. Musks business portfolio, which relies in part on government contracts and subsidies, has raised conflict-of-interest concerns, although Mr. Trump has brushed off those fears.
After Ms. Ocasio-Cortez criticized Mr. Musks conflicts of interest, Mr. Musk replied, Do you actually write these or am I replying to your intern?
Mr. Musk also turned to the platform in recent days to defend those working on his initiative. The billionaire has likened identifying those assisting his cost-cutting effort to doxxing, an online harassment tactic that involves posting private information like addresses and phone numbers.
After several workers names were published in media reports, X removed some posts on the platform that publicized the employees identities and suspended some accounts that had shared the information.
Dont mess with @DOGE, Mr. Musk wrote in a post on Monday night in response to people attempting to name and shame the workers.
Mr. Musk also boasted on X about the removal of the account for 18F, a digital services agency that is part of the General Services Administration. After fans raised concerns about projects the agency had worked on, including one that critiqued racial bias in facial recognition systems, Mr. Musk posted that the agency was deleted.
While its X account is gone, the agency so far has survived.[/quote]
Not for long, one must surmise.
Source
Some of the nefarious activities undertaken by the criminal organisation.
The biggest problem with democracy is that the majority of electors are stupid, gullible, don't really understand the issues or don't really care about anything much beyond improving or preserving their living conditions, of which the most important elements apart form food, shelter and clothing are entertainment, comfort and convenience.
He also doesn't have a clue what trade deficits mean. He believes that when Country A buys less stuff from County B than the reverse, this is a clear case of A ripping B off... unless Country A is the U.S.A., of course.
Over the past 72 hours, a dozen sources recounted the final days of the U.S. Agency for International Development before an effort led by Musk and supported by President Donald Trump crippled the agency and put it under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is now acting director. It appears to be the first of an untold number of federal agencies that the Trump administration seeks to remake without the approval of Congress. Democrats have accused the administration of breaking the law.
As the agency began to crumble under an attack from its own government, staffers worked frantically to send money keeping hospitals and soup kitchens from Gaza to Sudan running, saying that people may die as a result of the chaos. As of Monday afternoon, they were trying to send $305 million to the World Food Program. Were blowing through all the normal processes to get this out as quickly as possible, says one staffer. Employees couldnt even tell their partner organizations, with which they were communicating regularly as recently as last week, how much money was coming. I dont think anyone has any idea whats going on.[/quote]
Many people will die because of these actions. Perhaps that's OK with the American electors, although you can bet that their chosen media outlets will not report it.
The US is actually not all that generous, in terms of capacity to give: As a share of income, Norway gave 1.1% of its GNI [gross national income] and topped the list in 2023, followed by Luxembourg (1%), Sweden (0.9%), Germany (0.8%) and Denmark (0.7%). The U.S. gave 0.24% of its GNI in official development assistance, ranking No. 26 on the list.
Of course there is: President Clinton's 1993 Economic Plan included $255 billion in spending cuts over five years.
Congress can cut future spending and fail to appropriate funds for previously approved spending. The president can veto spending bills, and unless congress overrides the veto, it stands. Congress can eliminate whole categories of spending. If the congress should so choose, it can eliminate the Education Department, for example. Or the Defense Department -- just don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. States are more responsive to budget pressures because there is no such thing as "state's debt". If tax collection shrinks--as it sometimes does--spending has to also shrink.
Trump may think he is anointed by God to Rule, Reign, and Ruin, but Congress actually is the source of program creation and spending.
That's the design, but the GOP leadership is letting Trump do whatever he wants.
Perverse visionaries!
"Unelected bureaucrat is appointed by President to cut costs associated with bureaucratic bloat."
As has been pointed out, Musk is the democratic bureaucrat, given that his job derives from a mandate. So if we are using principles of democracy to calculate whether the bureaucracy that Musk represents or the bureaucracy that Musk opposes should win out, obviously the bureaucracy that Musk represents wins out. Musk's job is to address the budget problem, and this is something the citizens of the U.S. have been desiring for decades. The U.S. debt is $36.4 trillion and counting.
He didn't have any ideology the first time around. He does now. That was my point. But you know the European aristocracy said the same thing about the founders of the Enlightenment. Perverse! History is written by the...
In what sense, derives from a mandate? He has been summarily appointed, without Congressional or Senate oversight, and the barest of instructions, no guidelines, and not even the appropriate security clearances. Of course the US debt is an international calamity, and economic collapse is a real possibility. But having an unelected, unsupervised oligarch making unilateral decisions that affect millions of lives and thousands of employees is not any kind of solution to that.
I seem to recall Clinton balanced the budget. (I asked gemini.google about this fact, and it demurred, saying 'I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now.' And people are freaking out because DeepSeek won't answer questions in Tianamen.)
Short of another boom (none in sight), the main tool is fiscal discipline--reduce the yearly deficit by a) raising taxes on those with the most wealth (very unpopular among that group) and reduce spending (very unpopular if it's your ox that is gored in the reduced budget). Not impossible, just really, really hard to pull off -- even with cooperative congresses and presidents.
Can this be done, difficult as it is? Sure -- it just won't be done, in all likelihood.
Of course, the merest suggestion of raising taxes causes apoplexy amongst the MAGA, never mind that tarrifs are, of course, a tax on imports.
AI Overview
Yes, the federal budget has been reduced year-to-year in the past. For example, in 1993, President Clinton's Economic Plan cut federal spending by $255 billion over five years. The deficit decreased year-over-year in December 2024, dropping by $44 billion.
Beats me.
One of Trump's campaign promises was to address the federal debt. Musk and others are the ones he put on that job. There is no such thing as an elected debt-reducer. Musk represents Trump, and the President has more control over the federal bureaucracy than any other individual.
And sure, Congress is the ideal party to address federal debt, but they have shown themselves unable to do so for a long time now. It's really not that strange to see a president who was elected in part because of his promise to reduce the debt appoint an official to reduce the debt.
I don't think the average citizen is concerned that Musk is trying to address the debt. I think they are grateful that someone is finally doing what should have been done decades ago. The problem of the federal debt is one of the least partisan issues. And those who are making cuts are basically guaranteed to make certain groups angry, namely the groups who are benefitting from the money that needs to be cut.
The real wonder here is that Trump is giving Musk so much authority. That's surprising, but also hopeful. Musk has even expressed a willingness to make cuts to defense spending (which is where it would really count), but it is less likely that he will be allowed to touch that. Even Bernie Sanders was pretty happy about that idea.
Canada is a fine place, and may it continue as a sovereign nation forever. Even so, I don't quite see Canada as the escape hatch for anyone's existential threat. Even less so Greenland. Besides, Trump and his allies will be dead long before much more ice melts off of Greenland's chilly shores.
I'm sorry but the way he's going about it is an outrage. He's being given latitude to prevent programs being executed that have already been approved by Congress. There are many things that he's doing, and that Trump has done, that are blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. I'm really dismayed that an intelligent contributor such as yourself can be so sanguine about it, it's really completely beyond the pale.
If Trump wanted to do it formally, DOGE would be an advisory panel, and they'd draw up a list of programs and expenditures to cut, and take it through Congress and Senate. Barging into Federal offices without any authorisation other than 'Trump says so', and cutting programs and expenditures that are already in progress, is a completely different thing.
actually not that long, going on recent data. And their gravesites may well be underwater.
Secondly, as USAID is at the forefront of US 'soft power', then what of the sudden, massive vacuum in international aid caused by this withdrawal, what with tens of thousands of people going begging, who do you think might be the most likely of the global political powers to rush in and fill that vacuum? Would that have any bearing on considerations?
What's your theory on why he wants Canada and Greenland? I just assumed somebody told him that both those areas will be prime real estate in the future.
I'm sort of surprised to see Australians with a bookmark in the New York Times expressing such strong opinions on U.S. politics. If I read a single news outlet from Australia and opined strongly on Australian policies, how would I be viewed?
The Trump-Musk team is inevitably a brake-gas team, and even your NYT article says that Trump has pumped the brakes at times (Trump himself has said that Musk requires authorization from the White House for any moves he makes in this capacity). But given that the mainstream media hates Musk for helping Trump get re-elected, and that anyone who makes cuts is going to be demonized, these sorts of stories are very much to be expected. No agency is going to take a cut laying down, and that's why Musk may be just the right man for the job, aggressive as he is. The Pew Research Center reports fairly often on the debt, and recently had a piece on the federal workforce.
There is a basic tendency among citizens to say they want the deficit addressed, but then to object whenever anything gets cut. Or to say they want illegal immigrants deported, but then to object whenever illegal immigrants are deported.
Regarding USAID, here is Senator Rubio, who is now the acting head of USAID and is an elected official:
As Rubio says, "There are a lot of functions of the USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy." So the idea that everything within USAID is being cut seems like scare-mongering. Here is the White House Press Secretary on the strange USAID expenditures. As I understand it, the argument from the right is that USAID was created to provide aid and promote U.S. interests abroad, and it is now largely failing in that charter due to ideological capture. It is not being shut down but it is being reorganized to accomplish its purpose.
What in the WW2 example is usually forgotten is that huge change that happened of one spending totally ending, fighting the war, that opened another type of spending and demand. For example the US autoindustry stopped making cars for the public and transfered everything to making tanks actually earlier than Nazi Germany did such move! Private demand was curbed and limited, all that debt that people willingly bought war bonds went to military production of bombs and tanks. Which then totally ended once the war was over, and the millions in the armed forces went back to civilian life.
Nothing like that can happen here where the debt is basically there to uphold present consumption. And sooner or later DOGE has to look at where the actual government spending is, which isn't USAID.
Do we think that DOGE will go after enormously expensive health care spending, which first and foremost is expensive because corporations make profit from it?
Two of my grandchildren are American. Their father is a dual citizen. And as the old saying goes, if America sneezes, the world catches cold. America is going to do much worse than sneeze, and the world is going to get much worse than a cold.
Quoting Leontiskos
An illegal appointment. U.S.A.I.D. was established by an act of Congress, and can't be dissolved or merged into State without Congressional approval. Of course the MAGA congress is totally supine, but the point of principle remains.
Or does it? Trump summarily fired a dozen Inspectors general 10 days ago. That also was illegal as each act requires approval by Congress and 30 days notice.
So, question: do you support the right of Trump to act illegally in such cases, and the right of the Executive to ignore Congress and established law? That Trump can, in effect, rule by decree, as he is appearing to do? Why bother with Congress and Senate at all? Frank's already said democracy has failed.
Quoting Leontiskos
It is far from scaremongering. All of USAIDS websites have gone dark and nearly all their employees have been frozen out of their accounts. A few exceptions have been made but there are thousands of programs that have been terminated without notice.
What's the opposite of scaremongering? What do you say when you see a real clear and present danger, and the people standing next to you shrug it off?
I imagine you have to work for a living. Put yourself in the position of a USAID staffer, who is told on Sunday night, without notice, that their job is terminated, and find themselves locked out of the office and their systems the next day. How would you feel about that? All for a good cause?
The Myth of Cassandra
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a Trojan princess blessed with the gift of prophecy by the god Apollo. However, after she rejected his advances, he cursed her: she would always see the truth, but no one would ever believe her. This left her in a tragic positionshe foresaw the fall of Troy, warned her people not to trust the Greeks and their wooden horse, and later predicted her own death at the hands of Agamemnons wife, Clytemnestra. Each time, her warnings were ignored, leading to inevitable disaster.
Interesting comment. I've wondered about our health care system, and this past year I have discovered how well it functions for senior citizens during the treatments of a broken leg and cancer at age 87, with complications. It's been one year since the fall shattering my right femur, then, in hospital, finding I had cancer elsewhere. I have a Medicare Advantage plan provided by my public employee's retirement program, and pay into it monthly, but my out of pocket charges were virtually minute.
A good friend recently had triple bypass surgery, and his surgeon told him that at the age of 82 had he lived in Ireland he would not have had surgery and would have been sent home to die.
Okay, fair enough.
Quoting Wayfarer
Except that's not true at all. The President appoints the administrator of USAID (and other executive agencies). The Senate approves the appointment. And of course it has not been dissolved.
Quoting Wayfarer
Are you just making things up? USAID is a government agency of the executive branch, and like other executive agencies was originally created by Congress. It is in no way illegal for the President to fire and replace officials in executive agencies (link).
Quoting Wayfarer
It sounds like you don't understand the U.S. government very well. The Democrats have pushed for a strong executive branch over time, in order to circumvent the gridlock that our system is designed to produce (especially in the legislative and judicial branches). Trump has inherited that strong executive branch, and is using it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Cuts are cuts. If the American people didn't want cuts they shouldn't have asked for them. It's not like you make cuts without cutting jobs, and in many cases it seems that benefit packages have been provided, or offered for those who wish to leave. The goal is to move a significant percentage of the government workforce into the private sector.
My father has a similar story with cancer and Medicare.
But Rubio was confirmed as Secretary of State. The decision to merge USAID with State was not approved by Congress, nor even floated with them. As for job cuts:
[quote=Channel 9 Sydney 5th Feb]The Trump administration said today that it is pulling almost all US Agency for International Development (USAID) workers off the job and out of the field worldwide, moving to all but end the agency's six-decade mission overseas that fought starvation, funded education and worked to end epidemics.
The administration notified USAID workers in emails and a notice posted online, the latest in a steady dismantling of the aid agency by returning political appointees from President Donald Trump's first term and billionaire Elon Musk's government-efficiency teams who call much of the spending on programs overseas wasteful.
The order takes effect just before midnight on Friday and gives direct hires of the agency overseas many of whom have been frantically packing up households in expectation of layoffs 30 days to return home unless they are deemed essential.[/quote]
Did you hear what Musk said at the top of this thread? We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper, Mr. Musk gloated on X at 1:54 a.m. Monday. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead. This is a guy who is literally barging into some of the most sensitive offices in the Government and threatening anyone who stands in the way with arrest, making decisions on the fly as to what programs, jobs and spending should be cut, and directing a bunch of 20-something y.o. engineers to carry out his orders. And you're OK with that? I really don't understand.
Quoting Leontiskos
No, I'm reading international media.
From your link:
So, your opinion piece says one thing, but plenty of others differ. And the whole point of Inspectors General is that they're not political appointees, and generally none of those fired were. They're being fired to make way for MAGA appartchiks.
Quoting Leontiskos
Right - cuts are perfectly understandable. Had the debate been had, USAID been informed that it was to be merged with State, staff told that it was happened and had a chance to respond and wind up operations, it wouldn't be a story, and I wouldn't be complaining about it. But that is not what is happening. This is like the US equivalent of Kystalnacht.
I think it has been discussed here earlier just why the US system is so expensive. It's when people's first contact to health care services is ER, which is the most costliest type of health care. The that the price of medication is through the roof for people (as the government isn't a huge buyer) and medication is advertized is something American and lastly that insurance companies are there to make a profit. They don't have obligations to handle part of the universal system without profit making as they do for example in Finland. Then there is inefficiency, which isn't so easy to get rid with a purge everything -mentality.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's why independent inspector generals would be a problem, as you said.
Trump won the popular vote by a little over 2 million votes out of a total of 152 million votes. That's not a mandate by a landslide vote by any stretch of the imagination. Musk's job derives from an electoral victory, but more from Trumps adoration of business success (richest man in the WORLD) and Musk's rabid animus toward government. Musk has the role of Trump's junkyard dog.
Biden had more popular votes than Trump and a bigger mandate--81.2 million votes, a 4.4% lead over Trump.
Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had 23% and 18% popular vote wins respectively-- much closer to a mandate.
So what? Is there some reason you think Rubio cannot serve as both? Or are you concerned about the rumor that USAID will be merged? Note that USAID is already closely tied to the Secretary of State:
Quoting USAID | Wikipedia
Quoting Wayfarer
I think you've been caught up in the sensationalism. From what I have seen Musk did not do anything without approval from the White House. I mean, what is the objection, here? That USAID has "some of the most sensitive offices in the government"? That doesn't seem true. That Musk had a team of young techies helping him? What's wrong with that? And sure, I wish Musk wouldn't talk that way about the wood-chipper, but that's Musk. He's always been like that. And what if it's as bad as he says? I am seeing a lot of hearsay online intended to whip people up into a frenzy.
Quoting Wayfarer
It's not an opinion piece, it's from an American legal scholar. You merely linked to a Google search. Do you have a concrete source for your view? Namely for your claim that the act of firing an inspector general requires congressional approval?
Quoting Wayfarer
Fair enough, but it would probably still be a story.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. The President can remove IGs. Their "point" is not to be above the head executive.
There you go, and you've unwittingly admitted that Trump has a mandate. :up:
The point here is that trimming government agencies is not an undemocratic move by a rogue Musk.
A nod and a wink from Trump does not a proper authorisation make. Again, surprised by your view, but from now on I will confine any conversations with you to matters philosophical.
[quote=Politico] Andrew Natsios, who ran USAID under President George W. Bush and is a lifelong conservative Republican, calls such moves illegal and outrageous. What Musk and Rubio are doing is criminal. They cant abolish the aid program without a vote of Congress.[/quote]
There is zero chance that DOGE / Musk will go after United Health Care, et al. The sort of government spending that will be sacrificed are USAID, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Humanities. The Library of Congress? How many congressmen ever check out books there, anyway? Sell it to Amazon!
Like many Americans, I believe we need to make cuts to address the national debt. I don't expect such cuts will come easy.
The source for the Politico quote is here. FWIW, mentions that Australia and Canada folder their foreign aid organisations into State departments.
people do consume a lot; I do my part. It's good for the economy. BUT if we wanted to tighten our belts and spend less on consumption and spend more on national debt reduction, where could we save a significant amount of money???
Americans spend about 1.3 trillion dollars a year on products that are optional. I don't consider coffee optional, but the rest of you can jolly well live with out it. We could save $1.3 trillion a year by foregoing these products, which would significantly reduce the debt. Coke and Pepsi will really hate it, as will brewers, vintners, distilleries, and bottlers of tap water.
But there are other optional items I didn't list, and if coffee is critical for you, then maybe carpeting and floor care are non-essential for you. We spend about as much on lawn care as we do pet care. So, maybe ditch the lawn mower and get a puppy. A large dog will ruin the lawn, so no more mowing. Fair trade, I'd say.
If we can squeeze a trillion dollars out our worker pockets, think how much can be squeezed out of the pockets of the 1%? (Might have to be by force; I'm willing to sacrifice their comfort and convenience for the national good.)
What the rank and file could save on
$46 billion - bottled water
$29 billion - salty snacks
$164 billion - candy
$259 billion - beer, wine, spirits
$70 billion - commercial weight loss products
$30 billion - dietary supplements
$342 billion - sweetened and diet drinks at home and away from home
$13 billion - vaping products
$110 billion - coffee
$153 billion - lawn care
$5 billion - car washing
$48 billion - perfume & fragrance
$33 billion - cake (bakery, freezer case, mix)
1.3 trillion total
Quoting BC
The US ultra rich pay obscenely low amounts of income tax, something that will never be challenged by MAGA, which is after all has a record number of billionaires in Cabinet.
Oligarchy - government by a select group.
Plutocracy - government by the very wealthy.
As the Trump cabinet comprises 13 billionaires, and as the World's Richest Man is acting as a kind of freelance change agent on Trump's behalf, 'plutocracy' is nearer the mark that 'oligarchy'.
The U.K. government only just finished paying its debts to slave owners in 2015
But we paid our war debts to the US earlier.
In a competition for [s]arsehole[/s] global saviour of the millennium, I think Britain has the edge, just because we have been at it longer and in more places than anyone else.
But panic not. Netanyahu is giving Gaza to Trump, and he will build the mother of all holiday resorts on it and the boom times will be back. You lucky lucky people.
But if you save all that $1.3 trillion, what are you going to do with all the time you won't spend making distributing and consuming all that junk? There'd be a fentanyl famine for sure; that's just the way the economy swings.
[quote=TheDailyBeast] Musks team of youngsters, as first reported by WIRED on Sunday, is Akash Bobba, 21, a student at the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Coristine, 19, a student at Northeastern University in Boston; and Ethan Shaotran, 22, who said in September he was a senior at Harvard.
The ones who actually have degrees, or at least have left college, are: Luke Farritor, 23, who attended the University of Nebraska without graduating; Gautier Cole Killian, a 24-year-old who attended McGill University; and Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who attended Berkeley;
The groups relative lack of experienceespecially no previous positions in government workhas Democrats crying foul they were granted access to sensitive records while remaining largely in the shadows, away from public scrutiny.
All six desperately tried to cover their digital tracks recently, almost all of them deleting LinkedIn profiles, X accounts and even Facebook.[/quote]
These are the experts who Trusk is using to manhandle ten thousand employees out of their jobs.
It was always an article of faith amongst my circle that America is a plutocracy. It's been owned and run by corporations for some time. Isn't the difference now just one of aesthetics and a different mob of sharks? It's now more celebrated and the names are better known. I remember when Obama bailed out the banks after the last cuntact from the financial elite. Cornel West said, what do you expect from a President whose key advisors were mostly from Citybank. West called Obama a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."
A report on the immediate and drastic impacts of the USAID closure in Africa.
Foreign Strongmen Cheer as Musk Dismantles U.S. Aid Agency
Well, this is written for the New Yorker's audience, but I am pretty sure conservatives would take this in the opposite direction. Here you have a bunch of unelected officials shoveling out US taxpayer money to foreigners. They know the democratically elected head of state doesn't want them to keep doing this, and thus that they have no real mandate to do it. They no doubt know that their work is not very popular with the American public. But they scramble to get as much cash out the door as possible. The recalcitrance!
On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that the officials are the only ones in this situation who actually realize the consequences that will follow from halting the funding. Indeed, they might very well know that at least some funding cuts/delays will run directly counter to Trump's goals on foreign policy and migration. Trump (and his lieutenant Musk) and the voters have the weight of democratic opinion and legitimacy, but are largely acting from ignorance.
Other countries tend to be squeamish about security aid, so a lot of US aid is essentially covering that side of it so that the Europeans can "keep their hands clean." No doubt, one could complain about the destination of such aid, or the way it is sometimes shaped to benefit defense contractors, but it certainly is important. There are plenty of cases to demonstrate that, without proper security/military infrastructure, billions of aid just ends up being wasted, either destroyed or looted. Of course, you can also waste billion in security aid. Case in point: the ANA routing on contact with the enemy, or the SAA doing the same after years of substantial Russian and Iranian support.
Thanks, we here take great pride in our ability to have constructed such a Kafkaesque system.
I mean, the other options were to allow for a catastrophic domino effect of bank failures along the lines of the Great Depression or to nationalize the banks. But at least part of the 2008 financial crisis was due to the perverse incentives faced by massive government run banks, and America's student loan crisis shows how these sorts of problems are not easily dealt with. At any rate, he would need Congress to nationalize the banks, and probably a majority of the Court, and he could count on neither for a solution that radical. TARP and the extraordinary actions of the Fed actually began under Bush at any rate.
The plan was to save the banks quick to forestall collapse, then, when there was time to think carefully, introduce a raft of new legislation to prevent such problems in the future. Unfortunately, Ted Kennedy died and the GOP took the House in the mid-terms and so the final regulatory bill that came out was drastically reduced in scope from what might have been ideal. It was still a very major reform though.
Not bailing out the banks would be the more consequential equivalent of dealing with waste at USAID by just shutting down the entire agency in a day. As soon as he moved to suspend TARP and ordered the Fed to stop buying securities, the markets would have gone back into freefall and unemployment would start soaring again. It would have been incredibly dumb; I don't even think Trump would do it.
What? I assume you're referring to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while they had charters, they were privately owned and only became "government run" after the crisis. Let alone that all those "professional" private banks and investment funds invested in alt-A and subprime mortgage backed securities securitised by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae without understanding the risks related to them, e.g. they were so professional they had no clue what they bought. The market collectively underestimated the risks because money was cheap and everybody was running around looking for yield. And in that respect nothing has improved since then.
To claim the 2008 financial crisis was due to perverse incentives at massive government run banks is smply not true.
I defy you to come up with anything remotely as Kafkaesque as spending 180 years compensating slave owners for depriving them of their slaves. Mind you, now that the people of Gaza have been reduced to a logistical problem, it is only two steps to the final solution; step one, concentration camp; step two, extermination camp. But even there, we Brits got there first in South Africa, though it took German discipline to industrialise the process efficiently.
Oh, those will surely go. But that won't do it. Sooner or later will come a hickup in the form of a crisis. US administrations just push it forward and hope a crisis doesn't happen on their watch.
Quoting BC
This will only happen through a crisis. And that crisis will happen through the markets, or as the classic political jargon is: the speculators did it and the (add here your enemy that you portray to be behind everything).
Some commentators say that Trump was freaked out by market reactions and agreed on a "30 day pause". The problem is that he cannot give up so easily his wacky ideas of tariffs. The possibility of a recession manufactured by Trump is very likely. And once the economy (US and global) is in recession, then the debt is even more problematic.
* * *
If the USAID is given to the State Department, perhaps the most destabilizing cut offs might be averted. If people think this is just bleeding heart liberals whining, not everything is DEI-nonsense, that Elon is celebrating from the shutdown:
So will Elon unintensionally help ISIS by not paying the prison guards? Syria is in a very precarious state now. These kinds of little issues are off the GOP-narrative, but small hickups like these can happen when you stop for 90 days the financing of absolutely everything. And although Ukraine likely denies it, this is hampering their war effort too, just as the last GOP halt did in the war.
Nope. It wasn't government run banks that made the 2008 financial crisis. Ninja-loans happened because of the twisted incentives in the market like the other reasons for the excessive mortgage lending (like MBS etc). A very classic speculative bubble.
Well, they certainly were far from the only issue. There were however issues with them, hence the long running conservatorship and major reforms.
Student loans are an even more obvious example. Basically, the system is set up so that people are never turned down for loans, loans which are essentially impossible to discharge mind you. The result is a huge injection of liquidity into the market, which in turn has been at least one of the factors that have led higher education costs to soar ever higher even as more and more of the people actually teaching are poorly paid adjuncts.
It's not unlike how all the mortgage interest deduction does in the long run is drive up home prices while also increasing wealth inequality between renters and owners.
As we in the Netherlands know all too well...
What massive government run banks? The only government run bank is the Fed.
Fannie and Freddie. Together they hold $7.5 trillion in assets (student loans being another $1.7 trillion, putting these close to all of Wall St. combined, including their foreign holdings). These were created by Congress. They were relatively independent, but that's true of the Fed too. The split with Ginnie Mae only quasiprivatized them, since they were (now quite obviously) still implicitly backed by the state, and they also had Congress passing laws that only applied to them, a sort of hands-on regulation rather than regulation of a wider market. They have now long been directly administered by Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Sallie Mae is instructive here because its spin-off was more than an extension of independence. Sallie won't make the loans DOE does.
Ah. I don't think Fannie and Freddie caused the 2008 crisis, though. It was derivatives, right?
I kind of understand the hostility to foreign aid but as I said, a change in policy ought to be discussed, circulated, and executed carefully with due oversight, not carried out in the dead of night by a hastily-assembled group with no Congressional approval or oversight. That article I copied in above is one of many showing the ripple effects all throughout the developing nations and crises situations as clinics and food distribution centres go dark. Large numbers of people are suffering and dying as a result, although of course, they're not American, so what?
But U.S. government officials privately warn Musks blitz appears illegal. 'Privately', because nobody dare criticize Dear Leader.
Another story notes that Congress has basically capitulated to Trump, even though many of his demands and actions are borderline illegal and clearly in violation of what had been previous Republican policy.
The new executive is firing many people in the name of changing policy. Those mostly comprise of people who were doing what their job description required of them by established law. The idea that those job descriptions were a personal choice of the employee is stupid. That is the pervasive algorithm of the new administration.
Any private enterprise who behaved in the same way would disappear in a heartbeat.
It was a lot of things, a real witches brew. The derivatives were a major issue, but it was the entire structure of the US housing and lending market that led to the explosion of derivatives in the first place. You can add in the rating agencies too. But part of the reason that the ratings agencies, pension funds, etc. didn't worry as much as they should have is the idea of the implicit state backing for loans made by the parastatals.
Well, Musk hasn't totally destroyed Twitter yet. He has been blocked from these sorts of antics at his bigger money makers. Just as well, more time to fake video game accomplishments and binge ketamine in between eliminating federal departments and getting into Twitter fights. All in a good days work on the road to being the first trillionaire.
"Sleepy Joe", Trump sneered. What about senility Don?
Panama, Canada, Greenland, Gaza... Why not seize the French Riviera -- that's already open for business. Somebody else's business, but that's not a problem.
Unfortunately, plutocrats are not re-licensed every few years to make sure they're still mentally competent.
More to the point, NY Times lists all of the definitely or possibly illegal actions Trusk has taken since Inauguration.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
IN hindsight it seems likely that he only bought Twitter as his personal megaphone. The fact that it's estimated to have lost 75% of its market value doesn't appear to bother him, but then, talk about money to burn.....
Something more alarming is, imagine how deep the DOGE hooks will now be embedded in the IT systems of the Federal Government. I'm sure it's not coincidence that the DOGE troupe are mainly software engineer types. Infiltrating those systems at such a high level of permissions has many profound consequences. And here's the US, worrying about 'foreign actors' hacking their systems (although not worried enough for Congress to complain when Trump moves to retrench virtually the whole of the CIA.)
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It is true that Freddie and Fannie went along with the excesses (I think both directors were fired), but great example of an totally reckless actor was Countrywide, which basically had it's business model based on perpetually rising housing prices and hence was a top provider of liar loans. But hey, during 1982 and 2003, the company shares got a 23 000% return.
Besides, the real damage of a housing bubble bursting is caused from the fact that robots don't make houses in China, it is builders that make them locally and hence the market have a huge impact on the local economy and in employment. If cryptocurrencies have a devastating crash, then the effect of the crash is limited to that market and the suckers that invested them. Yet buying a home is usually the largest investment a person or a family does: have problems with that and the effect on spending and consumption is huge. Hence the effects of housing bubble bursting are simply devastating for the economy. When there's a speculative housing bubble away and growing, the whole economy of a country looks to be just awesome. Until it isn't.
I think one real issue worth mentioning is just how differently the US government reacted to the financial crisis of 2008 than it acted to the Savings & Loans crisis decades earlier. Simply put it: when it was Wall Street itself, it was socialization of the losses rather than people going to jail (as in the S & L crisis).
So yes, it was a lot of things, but simply stating that it was government run banks makes a dubious argument as if the crisis would/could have been avoided without Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, which btw officially aren't banks in the normal definition. Yet they are worth mentioning. also.
Of course, today it might be so that the assistance of private actors and corporations might be done totally covertly even without us knowing what is happening. The US is on it's way to functioning like a Third World country in this aspect. Would we know about it, if Tesla was assisted because of falling demand creating losses for the company?
We barely got to know that the whole financial system was on the verge of collapse back then.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
That makes sense. I didn't think about that. I had read that there had never been a significant downturn in housing prices, so people just didn't factor in the possibility of a crash.
Quoting Paine
There's a scene in the Bible where the people of Israel are asking their judge to name a king. Samuel tells them that in the day they have a king, they will all have become slaves. They insist though, and the Kingdom of Israel is born. They supposedly wanted a king for the sake of warfare.
In this is a recognition that monarchy has a dark side, but the desire for it is coming from the people. King-making is a deep seated drive and this has played out in American history and the presidency has evolved from a minor federal figurehead to something like a king in the sense that the whole political tone changes due to presidential agenda. This is not the result of a nefarious plot. It's because over and over, we found that an integrated, centralized authority can solve problems that the competing states simply can't.
Since the US government is widely considered by Americans to be dysfunctional, it shouldn't be too surprising that monarchy is on some people's minds.
Yes, during corporate takeovers, eliminating duplicate functions and getting rid of unwanted functions is standard operating procedure. Firing FBI agents because they did their jobs is another matter. The decrease in regulatory function by simply removing personnel circumvents the role of Congress as a separate branch of government.
The culture of a professional civil service that curries favor to no party will not be improved by such measures. They will, instead, bring back the patronage system of Tammany Hall.
Exactly. This is why I see it as easily the most disastrous of his plans. The Feds also benefit from a great deal of prestige. People want to work there. They get to recruit from top schools the way big consulting or law firms do, despite paying a fraction of the pay. They are going to lose that.
You can already see how politicization is affecting the state's access to talent in the plunge in military recruitment. If you had told me that the GOP would begin feuding with the military and security services back in 2015 I'd never believe it. It's a case where there really doesn't seem to be any larger trends, just the pettiness of one man.
I also think having a small, fully professional military becomes particularly dangerous when you start heavily politicizing the state. I would rather they return to conscription and citizen soldiers than have a small politicized class dominating defense. One need only look to our nation's police unions to see how that ends. If police unions had the power (e.g. they were also in the military), I think we'd very easily be like the Roman Empire, with security forces demanding massive donatives and overthrowing who ever challenged their impunity or wouldn't pay up.
Already with the fairly limited level of power you see then openly heckling mayors and sheriffs, essentially heckling their commander-in-chief, and being given direct orders from them and replying: "fuck you, 15% raises and we'll talk," or even sometimes "do what we want or we aren't following orders and doing the job we're paid for anymore." But some militaries ARE like that. It's what happens when you let them degenerate.
Yes, certainly. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I brought them up to point out that Obama had very limited options when it came to dealing with the crisis and the idea that bailing out the banks makes him some sort of plutocrat seems off to me. His options were to allow a catastrophic banking sector collapse, or, maybe, the nationalize much of the banking sector. He almost certainly couldn't get legislative approval for the latter though. And at any rate, he DID essentially nationalize two absolutely gigantic banks (granted, they were already quasi-public in a loose way).
The plan was to stop the crisis. The fact that Dodd-Frank and other legislative packages lacked the teeth they might have had has to do with the opposition party blocking more serious reform more than any lack of will from the Administration.
From where shall this anticipated efficiency emerge?
In addition to violating the separation of powers established by the Constitution, the DOGE introduces a plurality of agents where Hamilton argued there should only be one:
Quoting Federalist Paper #70
This captures the peculiar way that Trump says "I, alone can fix it" while never being the cause of any problem. The "buck" of Truman is forever on a cruise ship, playing shuffleboard with the other retirees.
This has had very bad long term consequences. In fact, it can be one reason that we have Trump today and we discuss issues on a thread that at first you would think was about a Third World country.
You see, if I'm a banker and you don't have any money and if I this knowing give you 10 million dollars to buy a lavish condo, I am actually doing a crime. I should check if you really have collateral and not simply assume that you are rich, because you are aristocracy, a count. I might think there's no problem, if you cannot pay the debt or even the interest for the 10 million debt, the bank will just take the lavish condo and sell it for a profit, perhaps 12 million in the future. Hey, no risk! And I get my fees instantly from that 10 million loan I sold.
The fact is that with cars people might fancy German cars over American cars and like some brand, but with debt there is no "brand", just how much it will cost me and how large debt can I get for how long. If the majority of customers go to the large bank, then a smaller bank has to take other customers. Perhaps those that don't get loans in other banks. This kind of "aggressive" banking, giving a 10 million "liar-loan" is one way for banks to grow their size, but it's not legal. There are laws against this. However, in 2008 and afterwards, nobody went to jail. Not even from Countrywide (if I am correct). This sent really bad signals both to the financial sector and to the voters. Some reckless bankers getting long term prison sentences would have scared the shit out of Wall Street bankers and gotten more people to think that the system does work. Because they were angry about the socialization of the losses of the rich already.
Hence people then got excited about a billionaire (or a millionaire pretending to be a billionaire back then) who said that the system is corrupt and he knows it, because he has used it. And was surprised how his supporters were excited about slogans like "drain the swamp". And not only do we have him now again as President of the US, but the worlds richest man is happily going around "cutting waste" from the government on a purely executive order bypassing all the rules and the norms. And now some people are enthusiastic about this.
Hamilton was a monarchist. I think the quote you posted is an argument for monarchy. I'm not quite getting your point.
On what basis do you say that?
Quoting frank
Read the Federalist Papers I linked to. Hamilton constantly contrasts the character of the Executive against the nature of the English monarch.
Quoting frank
The context of #70 is that a number of groups were arguing that the office of President should be a plurality of some kind. The Constitution was written only recognizing a single occupant. Hamilton's comparison with the British Monarchy is to note that the Monarch does not have the checks on his power that the President has so the role of councils should not be seen in the same light.
Quoting Wikipedia
The American democracy exists because of this fascinating guy: Thomas Jefferson:
Quoting Paine
They were breaking away from England, but many of the founders thought they should try to reproduce the British government as closely as possible. It made sense. They basically wanted to be England, so why not make their government English?
The opposing view was more daring and precarious. It meant creating something that had never existed: a giant Athens with no slaves, while in the middle of nowhere without a clue as to how they would fend off future attacks from the French. And they were all keenly aware that the British aristocracy had proclaimed that democracy was impossible, especially if conducted by a bunch of riff raff.
What followed is expressed by the title of a book by this awesome historian. It's a great book and the introduction is some amazing insights about the work of a historian:
Quoting Paine
Ok. Musk is working under Trump's authority, so there is no plurality.
Hamilton was undoubtedly a proponent of a strong central government. The Federalist Papers hammers out a negotiation with those who opposed the idea. That is why the rules for impeachment and criminal liability were agreed to in them. The separation of government powers was developed for the same reason. Hamilton uses these concessions to argue against those who wanted to stay within the articles of "confederation."
Quoting frank
The point of my observation is that DOGE is acting as a council outside the role of "advise and consent" apportioned to Congress. Hamilton was comparing the role of councils in the proposed government with their use in the British Monarchy. Hamilton was arguing that executive councils in a system of checks and balances would obscure the source of decisions rather than make them more democratic. The lack of transparency of the Musk operation is a fair example of Hamilton's concern.
You may be right. I think Musk is working under Trump's authority, so there isn't any official plurality.
I am not saying that DOGE amounts to a plurality of the executive. Hamilton was not saying having such councils were a sharing of power. He was arguing against those who thought such councils would help provide a balance of power. Musk is Donald's dog. My observation is different than wondering whose tail is wagging who, interesting as that may be. The point of #70 is about taking responsibility and how an Executive may avoid it.
In this case, Hamilton is addressing decisions that the Executive makes and does not want to own.
Ok. Eisenhower told the CIA to fight communism and don't tell him anything about their actions. People associated with the issue warned Eisenhower that the CIA was getting out of control. And they were. This sort of thing happens, right?
Would you grant that your example of willful unaccountability of an agency, which is supposed be overseen by Congress, is different than the motives behind the formation of DOGE?
How does your question relate to my assertion that monarchy will not provide the efficiency you suggest it could provide?
Different in what way?
Quoting Paine
I didn't say anything about efficiency. It's the effectiveness of monarchy that caused every ancient democracy to transition into monarchy.
Quoting frank
Quoting frank
The agencies and bureaus are established through law whereas DOGE has sprung directly from Trump's forehead.
However it was established, the CIA was part of the executive branch and under the authority of the president.
I guess if there's something unconstitutional about DOGE, somebody will bring a case to the SCOTUS and sort it out.
And again: I said absolutely nothing about efficiency. Look up the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
Thanks for underlining this aspect. Knowing many excellent government workers, their sense of service in exchange for gain they could have had elsewhere is palpable.
Good luck with that. Let the supreme court think about it make a decision once the things have been already done.
DOGE is just an example of executive power gotten totally out of hand. Even if Trump has the GOP ruling the Congress, that won't matter. They don't plan to go by "the book". And it's totally logical, because these people do see the government as the real enemy here. It was intended so: make sweeping cuts and then look if it works. If something is absolutely needed, then get the funding back. This is the way Musk has told he will do. Sure, DOGE acts without no congressional oversight and simply doesn't take into consideration at all the separation of powers and how a republic ought to work. It's intension simply is to create havoc, that creative destruction and afterwards people can talk, but once the cuts are done, they have been done and Congress can take as de facto.
This will continue in the FBI and other places.
Hungary is perfect example of what is happening in the US. What does this mean? Well, since Trump & DOGE hasn't yet erased past US government findings, here's what the US State Department had to say about Hungary in 2022:
The unfortunate fact is that America has elected a President who hates Government and is also really bad at governing.
Trumps power grabs will go on until someone stops him and thats not happening soon.
Possibly the next step is for Trump to start dividing the military into those loyal to his vision and those not so much. Perhaps he will create a new military arm, a MAGA elite who can help him dispatch any opposition should Musk and Thiel want him to throw out the constitution.
If not, a screenwriter, based on that scenario. As far as the police, military and intelligence community goes, how much loyalty do you think they'll have to the Orange Emperor? My guess would be, precious little. The police likely hate him for releasing all the Jan 6th police bashers. He routinely denigrates the intelligence community and military. So if push comes to shove, how much of a chance do you reckon the Proud Boys militia would have? (This is why he's desparately trying to purge the entire intelligence community and putting appartchiks in charge of them and the military.)
I'm frankly very scared about it. A lot of people (including my dear other) think I'm overdoing it, but I think we're looking at the worst global crisis since 9/11. It dismays me that so many people are shrugging it off or falling in behind him. I don't think they understand what's happening.
I think part of the problem with this matter is that we have to follow inferences to come to particular conclusions. Not everyone will make the same inferences. Churchill was right about a certain Austrian
when many others thought he was overstating the case.
Some folk I know have held for some years that Trump is a puppet for Peter Thiel (the real danger) and that his chaos and the MAGA shitshow is merely an excellent smokescreen for the real work - the remaking of America along radical libertarian lines. They are expecting concentration camps any day soon. This seems overly paranoid, but who really knows?
Large scale internment camps of 'hostile aliens' are an immanent possibility. Trump has already ordered construction of one at Guantamo Bay, to accomodate 30,000 unfortunates.
Quoting Tom Storm
and in the the event of total economic collapse, all of the ultrawealthy will withdraw to heavily armed gated communities. Sounds dystopian, doesn't it?
Well, those that voted for him wanted that. We have already seen on term of his government, so there's absolutely no way to be surprised now on what he is doing. He just continues from where he left in the last few months of the previous Trump administration.
Quoting Tom Storm
Libertarian concentration camps? Yes, it seems so.
[quote=Washington Post; https://wapo.st/40MGzz1]The Trump administrations abrupt decision to repatriate the U.S. Agency for International Developments overseas workforce has thrust the agencys global staff into chaos and despair, as workers scramble to uproot their lives and brace for what they fear will be a shutdown of all American aid missions in 30 days.In interviews, USAID staffers said Tuesdays recall order has sent them racing to make temporary housing arrangements back in the United States, identify new day cares or schools for their children, and plan for a future in which, as many now believe is inevitable, they are left unemployed.
These employees, some assigned to dangerous hardship posts, are attempting to navigate that process with little information from the Trump administration and while many are locked out of all agency computer systems.
You find yourself in a foreign country, in all likelihood a place you moved to despite the terrorism or security risks, and youre being treated as if youre somehow an enemy of the state, one USAID official told The Washington Post. Thats not even the worst of it. You know that your career matters far less than the lives of those you were trying to help, and a lot of them are going to die without American aid.
...Some USAID officials now expected to return to the United States are just months into multiyear assignments. Many spoke with emotion about the disruption facing their families and anger at the characterization, by Musk and others, of USAID as a corrupt and criminal organization. The administration has produced no evidence indicating that is true. ...
USAID employees said that initially they were encouraged when Trump tapped Marco Rubio, who had supported foreign aid during his time as a U.S. senator from Florida, for secretary of state. Expecting tighter scrutiny from the Trump administration, some officials prepared dossiers for incoming agency leaders showing the impact of programs they oversee. ...
Rubio has said he regrets the recent actions hadnt been in an orderly fashion, but he said the process had unfolded that way because USAID officials had not provided information and access. (a.k.a 'victim blaming'.)
Congress sets our budget. They determine our priorities in country. It is not a USAID thing, one employee in Africa said. So when he says that hes feeding into this lie that USAID is this rogue agency. It is extremely hurtful.
What I have found to be more disheartening, as a someone who has dedicated their life to federal service and as an American, is Secretary Rubios willingness to parrot that narrative that somehow our disobedience and our insubordination is the cause of our current pain, another affected official said.[/quote]
Ok, Wayfarer. You read an article from WaPo and now you're passing judgment regarding Rubio's resignation? From Australia? :roll:
Why do you think you have any idea what is going on with this highly complicated case, mere days after the story broke? What if it's more complicated than the left-leaning media is telling you? Because that's never happened before! Your facts have been wrong, you are contradicting the most reliable sources we have, and you are randomly posting weird conspiracy theory-esque photos of Trump and Musk. Gossipy sensationalism isn't doing anyone any good.
What is coming out of the USAID investigation are pretty grievous misappropriations of funds, from a country whose national debt far exceeds its GDP. It's no wonder that the USAID employees refused to cooperate with Rubio, the acting administrator of USAID. Folks with a bit more prudence are waiting to see how deep and dark the USAID rabbit hole goes before opining on who needs to resign. Rubio has said that in some cases as little as 17% of the funds were making it to the endpoints that the program was meant to serve. But we can't talk about that because it doesn't paint Musk in a bad light, and that's the goal here, right? :roll:
Here's a fun story from Dr. Joshua Hochschild, who you are so fond of:
Quoting Joshua Hochschild, Begging your Pardon
Wayfarer, it looks like you're being brainwashed by the media. I would suggest taking a breather, turning off the computer for a bit, reconnecting with nature and reality, etc. Let the dust settle. Stop jumping to conclusions. Wait and see what the investigation brings, whether USAID is actually shut down, and whether the US ceases its aid programs (Rubio and everyone else have said that this is not going to happen). Don't let these news agencies manipulate your emotions.
In the US the sort of anti-Trump sensationalism you are caught up in has become a bit of a joke:
I retract nothing. As to whether USAID is going to be shut down, USAID is set to be hacked from 14,000 workers to just 294. And that is going to happen, it is, in fact happening. All of those USAID workers have been shut out of their computer systems. This is not a hypothetical. That video is from eight months ago. It's turning out much worse than was feared.
Oh, and if Hoschschild says that, then I'm very dissappointed by that. I've learned a lot from that article of his that I refer to but I completely reject any rationalisation of the January 6th outrage. It was an attack on the foundations of American democracy.
What 'integrity'? Trump and his stooges, including the unfortunate Guliani, brought more than 60 cases about voting irregularities, every one of which was tossed. All of that talk about 'integrity' is a lie and a cover for the actual reality of what happened, which was a violent insurrection aimed at subverting a legal election.
Now the perpertator is running the country. Yet somehow, I'm the one who's 'brainwashed'.
You're right, I should stop posting about this, and will. But I retract nothing.
Quoting Wayfarer
Hochschild again:
Quoting Joshua Hochschild, Begging your Pardon
Pretty good points, actually. It's almost as if the eyewitnesses have a more reasonable account than the folks who are hell-bent on making Trump look bad, come hell or high water.
And/or leave the Earth behind altogether. Musk's plan for Mars is eerily similar in its rationale to Hugo Drax's plan in Moonraker. They're also both unabashed eugenicists.
Time is a critical factor. If the push to remove personnel through massive buyouts allows a budget to pass that does not include certain costs, future censure will not magically provide renumeration nor restore operations that have been shut down.
Smart people are not always wise. They can be subject to ideological blinders outside their areas of expertise. At least some of the those pardoned for their acts on January 6th were comically guilty, caught on tape assaulting police officers because they were angry that their candidate lost an election. "The masses who fell victim to psychological warfare to wonder what made them so vulnerable to manipulation," thing is ironic.
Was it overblown to claim a bunch of disorganized rioters were a "coup?" Sure. Is it even more ridiculous to claim that people who are on video committing felony offenses are the "victims" of politicized prosecutions? Absolutely. As is the idea that "actually, there is a vast conspiracy we just don't have evidence of that really, the rioters were tricked into rioting. Yes, the crowd control wasn't tight enough, and they used pepper spray, clearly and indication that they were trying to bait people into rioting!" You know, because tourists also generally begin looting and vandalizing things when they are "let in" as well trying to kick down barricades until one of them is shot dead. Just tourist things.
You know, because peaceful protestors often bring their own pepper spray to demonstrate and then they just get viciously tricked into spraying into police officers faces. :roll:
He literally said the election was stolen in that speech. How can that be anything but inciting?
Yes indeed. Evidence given those claims would have been nice. It's weird how even a loyalist like Barr left over no such evidence existing.
[quote=Big Daddy, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof] Think of all the lies I got to put up with! ---Pretenses! Ain't that mendacity? Having to pretend stuff you don't think or feel or have any idea of?[/quote]
This is the idea. This is why they are so rapidly trying to act without much if any thinking of what programs they cut.
Basically this is an self-coup or an auto-coup in process. It should be the Congress that decides on spending or on government institutions by making laws and through legislation. Trump is now truly trying to question this and trying to make executive orders to be legally what they aren't.
While the Trump crowd is laughing their ass off on the bizarre "Invade Greenland" and "Mar-a-Gaza" and other orders, the real issue here is the changing what in a Republic is separation of powers to a Presidency lead fusion of powers. And that of course, only if the President is Trump or at least a Republican. With a Democrat President or any from another party, naturally the GOP would be all for the separation of powers and for the limitation the executive.
Afterwards Trump can just rule by decree and doesn't have to care at all about the Congress.
Especially if/when he loses the majority in Congress.
I think Congress will eventually fight to get the power of the purse back. The loss of institutional knowledge and structure, however, will take decades to repair if the Musketeers succeed.
The willingness of the GOP to go along with the demolition will be tested when their dependence upon federal spending is revealed through its withdrawal. Take, for example, the spending through the Department of Education. Here is a report on how much goes toward Red States. The States want to suckle upon that teat without the anti-poverty goals of the Feds.
The broader problem for the Red States is that tax cuts and deals that make them more attractive to businesses rely on the Federal budget to displace costs. The Balance of Payments shows this asymmetry. The breakdown is not a one-to-one correspondence but does show the close relationship binding States and the Federal budgets together. If the Federal structure goes to the guillotine, The GOP will lose a significant source for dough. As noted in this analysis on expenditures, spending in the tax code includes:
This set up cannot continue if lawmakers surrender their power to Trump.
Quoting Judge Halts Access to Treasury Payment Systems by Elon Musks Team
Congress has plainly surrendered to Trump's will. The judiciary is the last bastion, but my sense is that Trump will flout these rulings, and the Courts don't have any real power to enforce them. There will be much moaning and gnashing of teeth in the media, but Musk will simply brush it aside. At that point, it will, at least, have been made manifestly obvious that the President and his main collaborator are operating in defiance of the law.
source
Quoting NY Times
I had thought 'contempt of Court' was a thing, but I guess it's another thing that Trusk wants to abolish.
Even more will happen with international relations... as things are going. Europeans at least have internalized that the US might not be there. This has gotten even into popular culture, where if a crisis is depicted to happen in a NATO country, the US is portrayed to be absent or totally passive and NATO won't work (which is great for the story line). And one emerging view is that the Euro-Atlantic link, which has been so important (and what Russia's the ultimate goal is to break), might finally been over. Of course this isn't reality yet and we should remember just for how many decades now the imminent collapse of the EU itself has been predicted. So it's at this moment it's more likely that NATO will prevail than it would be ditched and become part of history like SEATO or CENTO.
How Times of India views the development:
A possible trade war won't help this. Likely the discourse will change on the European side too. Good example is Justin Trudeau, whose popularity has increased after talking tough back to Trump (even if the conservatives are still ahead) and is now telling that Trump's annexation dreams of Canada have to be taken as real. As we are preparing for the next round of Trump tariffs and for the 30 days to expire, I think it's likely that we get the trade war.
Of course after the Trump administration things can change with the Democrats trying then to roll back everything that Trump has wrecked, but likely the damage has then been already done: one simply cannot count on that the US will be there as an ally. Even if Trump is out, a similar politician might come to power in the future. This is unfortunate situation where Russia already is: even if Putin's regime would collapse tomorrow and a totally new administration would come to power that would want democracy, would want to improve ties to Europe and the West and would want to discard the imperial aspirations of Putin, there would be this underlying worry that the Putinists could return. The "Westernizers" could fall from power and the hard-line would take power again. It took a long time before Germany erased the worries about Nazis taking over Germany again.
Quoting Paine
Trump's popularity makes the GOP so sheepish towards Trump. Yet, if (or when) we get that trade war, the 25% tariffs raise inflation and we get a possible recession, then things might turn different. First warning sign will be if Musk and Musk's actions cause criticism. Musk will play here the role of the lightning rod. Then if things would look really bad, they GOP politicians can as easily leave Trump as they have embraced him.
You can already buy from Amazon these stickers for Tesla owners.
Do you know how long it takes a court case to go to the SCOTUS? I don't, but I assume it does take time. And that is Musk's plan. He has been quite open of his plans before the Trump debacle started: that they'll end funding for everything, then if something is really, really needed, that can be reconstructed and refinanced then.
Above all, let's just remember one person that has had personal experience from the courts: Donald Trump himself. He's lost, he's won and he has avoided a lot, yet he gives a lot of importance to courts. A true fascist wouldn't care much about the courts, the important thing would be the raw power, the military, the intelligence services and the security forces. I'm not so sure if Trump really can just fire all the judges and replace them with lawyers totally loyal to him.
What Trump can find helpful are the powers given to the President, if there is a huge economic shock. Let's just remind ourselves what power the US Constitution gives to the President in normal times:
It doesn't give the President economic powers, however these have been granted to the President, if he decides to call it an "emergency". A very much used "emergency" is to handle foreign countries:
And this is what Trump is already using. But it doesn't end there. In a trade war, Trump can do things just how he wants:
Also in an national emergence, he can simply shut down everything. Banking and money transfers can be regulated by Trump.
He doesn't have to fire them, if he can just bypass them. There are a number of judgements that have already been made about some of his actions, right now the lead NY Times story is Judge Rules the White House Failed to Comply With Court Order with respect to the illegal freezing of Congressionally-approved funds:
Vance is already saying that the judges are 'acting illegally'. With a supine Congress, from which any meaningful check on Trump's authoritarianism has already been extinguished, the Courts are the last bastion. I think Trump/MAGA will basically just ignore their rulings, saying that the Courts are opposing 'the will of the people' (i.e. Trump.) As I already said, there will be a lot of kvetching in the media about it, but if the President defies the Courts with the backing of Congress, it is very hard to see how he can be stopped.
Also of note is the next story, saying that the President is acting in defiance of the law, and that America is already in a constitutional crisis. But this is what Americans voted for - shaking the place up, taking it to the Establishment - although I really don't know if they comprehended what the outcome would be.
Bad outcomes will put pressure on the GOP.
Continuing the theme of the relationship between States and Federal budgets, there was a quick response to the NIH cuts from attorney generals: 22 States Sue to Block Trump Cuts to Medical Research Funding. And a federal judge has just put a stay on the order.
The money involved supports local economies in the same way military spending supports regions around bases. Here is one example: This is a death blow: NIH to cut billions in research overhead funding
One thing indeed can be that not only it's a "revolt of the judges" that happens, it can be also a "revolt of the states" that will happen. At least the 23 that are lead by Democrats.
And of course the global trade war is very likely happen as Trump has made global tariffs of 25% on everybody on steel and aluminium. Not going to end here. Might be a good time to sell stock and simply buy gold. Because Trump has no idea just what is the history of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930's, which worsened the 1930's depression. The tariffs then were actually smaller than the 25% number that Donald seems to love.
But when we don't know or care about history, we will likely repeat the mistakes of the past.
The revolt of the states has already been underway for quite some time. The capacity for individual states to decide their own laws on most issues, is potentially very divisive. And this will eventually erode the Fed's central power, if there is no top-down goal of unity, with corresponding internal diplomacy. Divisive economic policies from the Fed, will rapidly amplify pushback from individual states. Replace USA, with SA, as the outcome of MAGA.
The history of first amendment jurisprudence. He has to first advocate for criminal activity, and second, that his advocacy was directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action. None of that occurred, Im afraid. In fact he advocated the opposite, that they act peacefully.
I don't think the Constitution will be brushed aside but that considerable damage will occur while the Boy's Club has free rein of the White House. I agree with that State governments and financial consequences will eventually force the GOP to return to their jobs. The situation afterwards is hard to know. It makes me think of the novel, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. A scientist tries to explain the new anomalies and uninhabitable places on aliens who had a party on our planet and did not pick up after themselves.
What gives me a faint sense of hope is that the movement may become a victim of its own success. The reliable donkey which carried all the past sins into the desert has been put out of its misery.
Well, Ur-Trumper Steve Bannon has already had his ire raised and proclaimed that Musk should be "deported back to Africa."
One can incite people without doing anything illegal. Hell, people can do things that are corrupt without breaking the law. For instance, both the Clinton's speaking fee arrangements and several of the "gifts" accepted by Supreme Court justices (particularly Thomas) would be slam dunk felony offenses for local or state officials, and for lower level federal employees. It is completely illegal to let someone with whom you have official business give you hundreds of thousands in "gifts" or to let them buy a house for your mother, even if you are just a volunteer member of some local zoning board. This is true regardless of what the intent was. Merely allowing for the appearances of corruption is a felony for most officials.
For the most powerful officials, it isn't illegal at all. The people at the top of the federal government have long been exempt from anti-corruption legislation aimed at lower level federal workers and they have refused to pass laws aimed at fighting corruption and the appearance of corruption that are common at the state level. Based on recent SCOTUS rulings, it's not even clear if an explicit selling of pardons would be illegal. The parties will accuse each other of corruption, but they seem loathe to actually do anything about it.
Clearly illegality is not the proper benchmark of corruption, nor is it the proper benchmark for "incitement."
Well, we could test it. Go out and incite someone to do something. You can try it on me if you wish. You might find that its actually quite difficult to incite people to do anything, let alone something illegal.
Thats because the whole theory of incitement is magical thinking top-to-bottom. It is physically impossible to animate someone with your words and to suggest that one can is tantamount to sorcery.
"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
Tarkovsky made a fascinating movie, Stalker, loosely based on Roadside Picnic. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky wrote the screenplay.
Particularly when you consider the absurd presidential power to arbitrarily and with impunity issue pardons.
Yes, I am a fan of both book and movie. The book captures that "don't worry, everything is under control vibe" of the late Soviet era.
[quote=Washington Post; https://wapo.st/42MJOt2]We are going to be signing a very important deal today, Trump said from the Oval Office. Its DOGE. He said that his administration had found billions and billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. [/quote]
How he's had time to 'find' billions and billions in the three frantic weeks since the inauguration is anyone's guess, although never a problem for someone who just makes stuff up.
Well, that's something, but actions speak louder than words.
Musk saw fit to bring one of his many infant children to the Oval Office, charmingly named X Æ A-Xii.
It's basically a hostile takeover of the functions of the Federal Government. It is utterly Orwellian.
Not really.
I think you know the information you're posting is headline news. You're just throwing it up there without any sort of intellectual engagement.
Most Americans are familiar with hiring freezes, layoffs, cost-cutting czars, etc. The Executive Branch has been immune from any kind of austerity, thus most Americans either applaud DOGE or they're like meh.
Don't pay attention to what he says. Look at what he does. "Unless, that is, theres an opportunity for a joke".
Yup, it was the wrong thread, and wrong Chrome tab. I saw President Musk's Address to the Nation in the Oval Office today. VP Trump was listening very politely, but seemed very scared of little X.
Ain't the the truth. 'Look, here's the future I'm unleashing'. :yikes:
You're right. I was wrong. Let's focus on the fallout. Step by step. :wink:
No, I think the US is headed toward increased authoritarianism with nothing to stop it. But you guys will be fine. :up:
Yeah, but it is sound advice, especially for one's own wellbeing.
here
Ok. I like this. You know, we have another twenty or so more years of this ..
Isn't that obvious? China will be ecstatic.
It just means the US won't be standing in their way. Their plans have already been made.
It is about to win.
The US and China are not at war.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the US military starts reducing it's presence in the Pacific.
The US doesn't want soft power.
Hold on, I'll post a picture of one of his children with a snark attached, just give me a second...
Then China will win.
Win what?
Quoting frank
Ok. Welcome to 2025. :razz:
China is growing into a super power.
You think?
Yea.
Do we need to do a deep dive on what Project 2025 is? Yes, I think we do.
You see, you keep thinking this is a joke. I'm going to show you why it's not.
Why is my reaction important to you?
I think we'll start with a discussion of what's known as Dark Enlightenment. This is the philosophical portion of what's happening in the world right now.
This will take a while.
That will be a good start.
With USAID the Trump supporters can be enthusiastic. I can fully relate that in Finland too: one certain crowd would be very happy if ALL developmental aid for Third World countries would be ditched by my country. And when Elon and his happy wrecking crew comes close to things that actually some Americans like and need, then it's going to be quite different.
The next thing will be if the department of education is axed. This is a very popular topic in libertarian and Republican circles, even before Trump. To abolish the department has been actually tried many times, but Congressional approval for that might be tricky. Elon being this crazy billionaire with an ax might simply cut off funding or severely limited it. Yet here's the issue: if it's the Federal government wanting to limit it's role and off-loading things to the states, that's just basically an internal role change. But as Elon's issue is to "cut waste", then just what will be cut will have effects in the US, not in Africa as with the case of USAID. And here the transfer of such authority to the states will likely not get at all any thought from the demolishing team that DOGE is. As if they would listen to the "Deep State", the enemy, in this issue. The effects can be a disaster, which some Trump voters with children might notice later.
See What Happens if the Education Department Is Dissolved?
So one can ask for starters, are there things like a need to have any coordination between the states on educational programs? If not, absolutely not, then it might not be so bad. I still think there are indeed things to be coordinated at the federal level, like that the education given in one state for lets say college level is similar with another state and it's colleges. I think that was the whole reason for the department to exist in the first place, not for poor regions to have far worse educational systems than more prosperous areas.
There goes the goodwill that people feel for the US and are thankful for. And seems like both Jordan and Egypt have said no to Trump's insane "Mar-a-Gaza" ethnic cleansing plan.
First were going to think about Rousseau, who believed that all evil comes from human association. If we could just go back to when humans rarely even saw one another, things would be great. But Rousseau realizes we can't go back. We've evolved into creatures who are dependent on what will eventually be called a "class state."
But there remains a way to remedy the disaster: government of the people, by the people, for the people. According to some, Rousseau was wrong.
Two people, specifically: John Locke, and some conservative thinker whose name I can't remember.
Anyway, the conservative, unlike Rousseau, believes that humans are evil by nature, and as such, they need to be kept in line. This is why we have checks and balances, this is why we have a prison system, etc.
According to John Lock, unlike Rousseau, and unlike the conservative, human nature is neither good nor evil.
I find Locke's ideas to be the correct ones, here. Rousseau was wrong, human nature is not good. But the conservative is wrong, I believe, when he claims that human nature is evil. Human nature is neither good nor evil. It just is.
That's not to reject moral realism. I believe that good and evil exist, but only in a moral sense, not a natural sense. The question is actually about universality, not existence. Are good and evil universal moral notions, shared by all cultures? Or are they relative to each culture? I say that they are universal. The notions of good and evil are common to all cultures. It does not follow from there, though, that good and evil are the only moral values. For there is such a thing as moral neutrality, which is neither good nor evil. It's the "mirror image", if you will, of Locke's ideas on the human nature: it's a third possibility, beyond natural good and natural evil: it's natural neutrality. Moral neutrality, on the other hand, is artificial neutrality, "cultural" neutrality, if you will.
Why does Rousseau believe democracy is the cure for human evil?
Because he believes that Democracy is the system that is closest to human nature. Human nature, according to him, is naturally good. Democracy corrupts human nature, according to him, but it's the least corrupting option, in his view.
Obviously I don't agree with any of this. I already told you, I'm on Locke's side here.
This is incorrect.
No, it isn't, because there's no such thing as being incorrect without further ado. If it's incorrect, then it's incorrect for a reason. A sufficient reason, to be more precise, as demanded by Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. If you cannot grant such a reason, then you are in the wrong here, not me.
This is poor post quality.
No, it isn't, because there's no such thing as poor post quality out of context. The quality of a post is determined by the context of the Thread in which the post is made. My post is an above-average response to your average, baseline, lowest-common-denominator style of posting. Therefore, in comparison to your own posts, my posts have an above-average quality.
Impossible? So, according to you it is impossible to incite people to do something illegal? Well, there are many examples of this magical sorcery (according to you) in history, as @Count Timothy von Icarus already mentioned.
You are probably thinking of Hobbes. He is the thinker Nick Land sets over against Rousseau in his essay: The Dark Enlightenment. For example,
This poorly represents Rousseau's beef with Hobbes who claimed war is man's state of nature. The natural man who lived before legislation and reason is said by Rousseau to be:
Quoting Jean Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men, Preface
Did you find the essay online? When I click that link nothing happens.
No, I think it was either Machiavelli or Robert Nozick. Completely different thinkers, that's why I said "the conservative". I can't remember which one it was, for the life of me. I learned this stuff when I was a student, I think I learned it in both Early Modern Philosophy as well as Political Philosophy,
I got it by using Google Scholar, Try clicking from this search page. The essay is third one down the list.
Awesome, thanks.
No problem. :smile:
Well, Niccolo wrote two centuries before Jacques and Robert wrote 3.5 centuries after. Locke is part of the "natural man" debate in which Rousseau and Hobbes participated.
Hobbes can safely be considered "conservative" in his call for Monarchy as the best kind of government.
Thanks! :grin: :up:
The old site is archived too: https://web.archive.org/web/20130925165535/http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/
I have tried to discuss Land, Yarvin, BAP, etc. here before, but not gotten any takers. Secondary sources (largely from journalists) tend to be absolutely horrendous here. They see the lable of "traditionalist" and just parrot it unquestioningly, missing that the appeal to "tradition" is almost wholly aesthetic, or to the "traditionalists" of the early 20th century (e.g. Evola, Guenon, etc.), the movement itself being essentially a sort of right-wing post-modernism. Deleuze, Foucault, Nietzsche, Humethese are the waters Land swam in prior to his political leanings leading to a sort of exile, not, as coverage might sometimes suggest, Cicero or Epictetus. But then the primary sources are not always particularly accessible (BAP is, it's just written in annoying memespeak).
[Reply="ssu;967667"]
They will probably only try to unwind some of DoE's enforcement mandates and side programs. Their main role is acting as a pass through for federal funds that go to local school districts and managing and astoundingly large loan portfolio. The largest, Title I and IDEA, for low income and special ed students, go all over the country, to rural and urban areas alike, in all the states. It would be extremely unpopular to hold these back since most school districts and many local governments run on a June 1st fiscal year and have already begun making their budgets.
I suppose they could just not disperse the funds. It wouldn't be catastrophic. Even in school districts that are like 90+% low income, Title I isn't a huge share of the budget. However, it is a meaningful share, a few %, which would mean a few million dollars in shortfalls for even smaller districts with like 5,000 students. It's actually normally a comparably larger share of total funding in poor rural and Republican led states, because there tends to be lower state and local funding there.
And, while reforms to the student loan process would be welcome, simply revoking access to credit overnight won't work. It would have a massive effect on the university system and leave people part-way through degrees stranded, curtailing the supply of new doctors, engineers, etc. So, I imagine they will have to tread much more carefully here.
And Marx. The political landscape is changing from left vs. right, to moderates vs extremists. Left and right extremists are in the process of merging (I think).
Well, you're not wrong. And you should be. Why? Because the process of merging left and right is the process by which fascism is synthesized, in a Hegelian way. This is not a thesis that I defend myself, I'm against it. I've dealt with this thesis before. And I don't endorse it.
One should remember the context of Hobbes, who lived through the English Civil War and saw how Commonwealth of England performed with it's lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, at it's helm (even if in exile). As a teacher of Charles II, he might have personal experiences and relations (people that he was with) that made him think like this.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Anything even close to reeking to DEI or something like that has to naturally go.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm not so sure just how careful they will be. One thing is simply is privatization. Can the services that the Department of Education gives be sold to the private sector? I can vision how this goes: the whole system is "wasteful" as there are so many federal employees working in the system handling these issues. So can everything be then outsourced? Can a company from the private sector do all this? That is the idea and then it's not part of government. Ah, the savings, the cutting down of waste and smaller government!
Rousseau says that all human evil starts with interactions. People piss each other off when they're in close association. Jim kills Frain because she took his car. Zee assaults Celia because she laughed at the wrong time, etc.
But there's no way to avoid this because we can't voluntarily go back to living in tiny family groups. We're stuck in societies that have enshrined class distinctions.
So could a society be constructed so that the laws are the general will of the people? If we could, then wouldn't people finally be free?
This is why Rousseau was optimistic about democracy: because it's all about personal buy-in. @NOS4A2, I think you'll agree with me that Rousseau was wrong. But why was he wrong? Why does democracy fail to bring about what he hoped?
In order to give all people freedom democracy would need to be strictly regulated with a view to stopping personal accumulation of wealth (at least beyond a certain quite limited point) and its economic policies would need to take account of the environment as an integral part of the economy in order to curtail the depletion of resources.
Many would likely consider such measures undemocratic. hence the problempeople will not vote for a party that proposes introducing the kinds of regulation that would be necessary to support the continuation of democracyand democracy unchecked undermines itself.
Where does Rousseau say that?
As the matter relates to Land's thesis, Land seems to be making the same mistake of Oppenheimer in his The State. The source of evil in Rousseau is the idea of private property.
I argued against Oppenheimer's view of Rousseau here.
I take your point that the thesis is not based upon "classic" sources. So far, the argument seems to be presuming that all consent is manufactured and being surprised at the conclusion that consent is manufactured.
Is there a secret sauce I am failing to experience?
Discourse on Inequality. In their most primitive state, humans are supposed to be free, happy, and lacking morality.
Quoting Paine
I was trying to paint a picture of the Enlightenment before starting Land's essay.
If you want to help, you can explain how Hobbes broke with traditional attitudes about the legitimacy of the monarchy.
All of which is beside the point of this thread, which was to comment on and document the hostile takeover of the functions of the US Federal Government by Elon Musk, acting as an agent for the current President. Between them they are white-anting the Federal public service - Musk is saying continuously that bureaucrats are a 'threat to democracy' and that 'in order for democracy to survive' they must be whittled down to size (this is Orwellian doublespeak in action). When it's actually Musk and Trump ('Trusk') that are blatant threats to the democratic process - flouting congress, constitution and the rule of law. As the post Banno linked to points out, what is happening in the US is 'state takeover':
Can you cite sources for that claim?
I know you're eager to jump over to Nietzsche on our way to explaining the ideological backdrop here. But we're still doing Rousseau. Could you be patient?
Absolutely. That's the idea.
He said they had a 'natural' morality, as depicted in the quote given here
Quoting frank
Then we are going to have to compare what those people actually said.
What would be cool is if everyone could keep an eye out for the things a Marxist would reject in the Enlightenment views we discuss.
Remember, Land was influenced by Marx when he was younger.
In one moment, you stand outside of Land's thesis, at another you argue from it. Pick a lane.
I'm in an orbiting satellite collecting data on the 21st Century. What is my lane?
I do have a tendency to start talking as the person whose view I'm describing.
Offer a little consideration for the neurodivergent pleeeeeeeeeese.
I have my own experiences with divergence and all these different polities being discussed here directly involve my life as I understand it happening. That goes for my family and all the people I love and have loved.
That love extends to people who believe stuff I do not and enemies who wish me harm. That is what Rousseau meant by compassion. I will hurt you if I have to. But no fist pumps and triumphant trumpets.
And so you can't be neutral. I understand. Does it hurt if someone seems to be flippant about it?
We're the same in that we're both coming from love.
It does. But how does that element relate to the description of power that Land lays out?
I don't think it's related, sorry.
Then I don't see the importance of insisting upon the essay being germane.
Oh. I think Musk is part of an expanding group with overlapping interests. There's Trump, who floated the idea of getting rid of term limits, and overtly sought to overturn an election. There's Vance, who has sympathy for Dark Enlightenment ideas. There's Vought, who the Project 2025 guy. And so on.
The general vibe is some kind of authoritarian libertarianism. What I'm seeing is that Musk is going straight for control of the Treasury, which would allow him wide control over how the government can respond to an attack from the Executive. Why is Musk in such a hurry? I mean, what is his vision for the US government in 4 years? I'm guessing an overhaul.
But what underpins it all is that Trump won comfortably. They have a mandate. I just happened to pick Dark Enlightenment to start with because this is a philosophy forum, and it's philosophy.
I am guessing from this screed that you have little interest in the topic of individual liberty that occupied your forebears.
How do you come to that conclusion?
The mention of a mandate that overrules the preferences of a minority.
I think that's what happens when there's an election. The majority overrules the minority.
Honestly, this is a volatile issue. It's a little more than some people can handle, I'm starting to realize. The USA is changing in big ways, but I don't think you'll really need to worry too much. Everything will be ok.
To hell with that. You have just undermined the authority that could promulgate such an assurance.
Oh well. I tried.
What?
:D Propaganda has worked.
If a bunch of tools barge into an office, would the office not require a warrant?
(Presumably, these are government offices, I have no idea about the legal details.)
Ed Martin, the Trump appointed interim U.S. attorney in Washington, after hearing that some bureaucrats were allegedly resisting Musk and his tools, wrote a letter to Musk saying that he would "pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes on your work or threatens your people [...] We will protect DOGE and other (federal) workers no matter what."
Rousseau takes great pains to distinguish between the particular and general will, but I think he failed. There is no general will, and thus no Sovereign. In practice the general will always turns out to be the will of some individual or faction or other (a particular will), namely, the rule of those who claim to know and represent the general will. The rule of this group or any other can never be the rule of the people. A republic or any other state is necessarily an oligarchy, and no one living in one can ever free.
[/quote]
I fear we should limit the term society to what it used to mean: a companionship, alliance, or fellowship, rather than taking it to be a nation-state. A State or country is not a society because we cant know or interact with all members of any given nation, and therefore there can be no natural and social allegiance between countrymen as there would be between family, friends, and others we commonly deal with. I suppose only those kinds of societies ought to be constructed and nurtured, and only there can the rule of the people be found.
Its not their office. They just work there, or used to.
It's not Musk's office either. And he doesn't even work there.
The warrant is dont you know who I am? :brow: Those resisting are threatened with arrest by Federal marshalls.
He works for the president of the United States. The people voted in the president to get Musk to do just what he is doing. Those offices are executive branch offices.
He needs no congressional approval. Hes a special government employee, in this case appointed by the president to carry out the presidents mandate.
He can point to his glistening orange nose as proof that he has been personally granted The Seal of Unlimited Imperial Powers.
You just said moments ago that '[t]here is no general will, and thus no Sovereign. In practice the general will always turns out to be the will of some individual or faction or other (a particular will), namely, the rule of those who claim to know and represent the general will. The rule of this group or any other can never be the rule of the people.'
And now you seem to be arguing that Musk is carrying the president's mandate; that he is therefore acting on the authority of the people's general will.
By people I mean those who voted for him. Not everyone voted, and not everyone voted for Trump. I figured that would be obvious.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/swamp-apocalypse-wednesday-february
The gist is that the DOGE is merely reconnoitering, and that Congress will act on the information gathered, and that the courts will have no say in the matter.
Are we talking plain dictatorship now?
Conflict of interest? Me?
The will of a "faction" is a "general will". It is not a "particular will". So in one sentence after the other, you have granted what you explicitly denied.
Quoting NOS4A2
Let's get this straight. By your own words, there is no general will. He is carrying out what is wanted by the president, not what is wanted by the people. By your principles, there is no such thing as "what is wanted by the people". (Incidentally, those are the principles commonly exploited by the strategy known as "divide and conquer".)
According to Rousseau the will of a faction is a particular will, not the general will. I was using his terms. What have I granted by using them?
Yes, there is no such thing as the general will. Thats not a principle. Its just a fact.
You dont think people wanted DOGE? I mean, Trump and Musk both campaigned on it.
But most people don't really want to be out in the woods trapping rabbits. They want to live more sophisticated lives of the kind that can only be found in society. So isn't the idea that you buy-in to the laws with some assurance that you're contributing to them, if not 100%? No?
Quoting USA Today
A consistent pattern in the executive decisions is that the means of finding out what happens because of them are being eliminated.
One doesnt need to live in the woods. He can live in a city if he wants.
By buy-in and contribute to the laws, do you mean he doesnt violate them? Personally, the only reason I dont violate any laws is because I do not want the authorities to have a reason to punish me. So I dont drive through red lights. Other than that morality is the only thing that guides my behavior.
So it doesn't make any difference to you if you live in a democracy or a dictatorship. It's the same thing either way.
Pretty much.
So why do people freak out like they're losing something? Why the lamentations in this thread?
Sure they did, or at least they wanted...something. :) (bulldozing education, research, information sources, are among the things they seem to be getting)
Quoting frank
I'm guessing @NOS4A2 doesn't want either, wants there to be nothing, just people doing...their thing.
There is no principle at work, as far as I can tell. For instance when Biden defied the Supreme Court for his illegal student loan forgiveness, the usual suspects, here, in congress, and elsewhere, didnt care. Imagine if Trump defied the Supreme Court and he said the Supreme Court blocked it, but that didnt stop me. I wouldnt attribute to them malice, either, so my guess is there are a number of cognitive biases at work, like a band-wagon effect, fundamental attribution error, projection, and so on.
Do you need laws to teach you how to behave, Jorn?
Biden didn't defy the Supreme Court.
Like I said, the usual suspects.
I think you're the usual suspect in this case. You're repeating manufactured talking points like a good little soldier. :grin:
Aah yes, manufactured talking points. Projection is one of the biases I was speaking of.
Gaslighter. :lol:
I know you like The Washington Post.
Traumatized? Gaslit? How to know if youre misusing therapy words.
It occurs to me that democracy probably wouldn't mean much to a sociopath.
His supporters comprise the majority. Such is democracy. To the victors go the spoils.
"Elections have consequences" as Obama noted.
Quoting Dec 27, 2023
Last I checked, his supporters wanted him to address high prices and immigration while downplaying the possibility he'd do the rest.
Is he actually flouting the law, the courts? I don't know, but if what the stupid article I linked a few posts ago claims is correct, he is not, and it will be congress that acts on the DOGE's 'intelligence'.
What that screed fails to observe is that many actions are being taken that have consequences for actual operations in real time. That is different from a Legislative oversight committee taking in testimony before arguing for a budget.
Except for the part where he said he'd immediately bring down prices.
Legal challenges to Trump administration actions
Trump never campained on immediately shuttering U.S.A.I.D. or freezing foreign aid, medical research expenditure, and many of the other actions he has taken. The normal way of going about those would be to introduce legislation to Congress, debate it, and then pass it and enact it. Trump has instead signed all of these into law by his so-called 'executive orders' which amounts to government by decree. There is no question that it is authoritarian in intent, with any dissent, either from Congress or the Courts, smeared by Trump's minions as 'thwarting the will of the people'.
Quoting Mr Bee
He's doing a brilliant job in keeping prices high and making them higher.
But Trump can surely get the prices up from just 3%. I'm sure he will get that inflation higher. After all, he promised you higher prices, more taxes on what you buy!
That's what you so much wanted, right?
I think your interpretation is overblown and a tad hysterical, even though I think that what Trump is doing is not a good idea and is probably, on balance, unethical.
The freeze upon funds is happening in real time. That is what some courts are opposing.
The point about DOGE's activities is that NOBODY knows on what basis all of these wild claims about 'fraud and corruption' are being made. Musk is showing up in Government offices with a troupe of 20-25 y.o. computer engineers and SpaceX interns, many of whom have had no clearance and certainly no congressional vetting, and going through their accounts. And yet, calling attention to the extreme nature of this, and the obvious dangers it poses, is 'hysterical' or 'hate speech'.
Here's Time Magazine being a tad hysterical:
Quoting Wayfarer
You are assuming the claims have no substance. How could you know that? And also, you are forgetting "waste". One man's waste is another man's judicious spending. the American people voted for Trump and so will be subject to his definition of waste.
Because they have been vetted by nobody. Musk and Trump will trot out these claims that U.S.A.I.D. is a 'criminal organisation' and roll their eyes about 'massive fraud and waste', and millions of the uninformed will believe it. But the funds they've frozen, and the programs they've cut, have already been approved by Congress. And Congress is the House of Representatives, they represent 'the people'. So people like you, uninformed and only interested in stirring the pot, will simply believe what you read, without actually reading much. Musk and Trump have no intrinsic right to act without congressional consent. That is why every one of his executive orders - every one! - is under challenge in the court system.
The Executive Branch has the prerogative of writing orders that many times are challenged by Judicial Branch objections. These can come from both Federal and State courts. The question at the moment is whether such restrictions will be respected.
According to the Constitution, it is the Legislative Branch that has power over the purse, and it is only under particular periods of crisis that the Executive Branch can intervene upon the process. Due to the present ubiquity of the GOP over all branches of Government, the jealousy of the Legislative Branch, which has often flared up in the past at their loss of power, has been neutered.
"Stiirng the pot"! You presumptuous person! I am interested in understanding what is going on, and I don't just believe anything I read, I try to understand both sides of the argument and reserve judgement until more information comes to light, unlike hysterical people like you who are always jumping ti unwarranted conclusions on some moral crusade.
So, it would seem the legality of what the DOGE are doing turns on the question of whether or not this is a "time of crisis"?
I don't think so. In the past, there was a general agreement among the Branches that the shit had hit the fan before such a move. And a lot of that involved bad decisions. The legality of the present decisions turns upon respecting the rule of law concerning the separation of powers. That one of those powers checks out in a rubber room until the outcome is complete is not a question of legality, per se.
It's going to be very interesting to see how this all pans out.
Theyre going into the actual offices where the metaphorical cheques are being written and saying stop writing that cheque. This is what all of the clamour is about. One of the heads of the Treasury resigned over it on the spot, rather than let what he saw as unqualified outsiders into these systems.
The dismantling of U.S.A.I.D was a particularly pernicious example of that. 10,000 overseas workers were summarily locked out of their computer systems and told they were being recalled, practically overnight. Musk made a wisecrack about staying up all night feeding U.S.A.I.D into the woodchipper instead of going to parties. These USAID services provide poverty relief, medical and related services in many situations of dire poverty and distress - like helping fit Ukrainian veterans with prosthetics and treating HIV/AIDS in Africa or distributing emergency food aid in Somalia. US foreign aid was a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people. But Musk declared it a criminal organisation and it was shut down practically overnight. These are all facts, which have been reported in the media. Do you think it is hysterical to report on these facts, or to express abhorrence for what has taken place?
It is indeed a time of crisis, but Trump is pouring gasoline on the flames. Dont forget he was under indictment for crimes against the State when elected, and had he not been, faced the very real prospect of prison time. And that is not being hysterical, it is a statement of fact.
And, sure, its already been said - cut foreign aid, dismantle the agency - that is what was voted for. That would normally be thrashed out in Congress, the passing of legislation, arguments from both sides. What is being objected to is not that, but rule by decree, carried out by an unelected representative, who just happens also to be the Worlds Richest Man.
I live here and i don't know what precedents are helpful at this point. The proposed changes involve the fortunes of my family and friends. Your question of "But what is really needed?" is the right one to ask.
But for me and mine, the question is how do we survive the storm.
I am not seeing a lot of references to Rousseau's or Land's actual statements In the comments as yet. Will this be forthcoming?
It is really important, if one wants to understand this, not to be hypnotized by what's going on now, but to get one's head around the background - Land, and then accelerationism. But it will take time and effort. Still, this is clearly not going to be a nine-day wonder, so it will likely be worth it.
https://youtu.be/9nPTHiPPCak?si=LwDnI4L_lFepLmRZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbN2pkAFN2Q
Remember when Trump ridiculed the idea of tanks running on electric motors as obvious woke nonsense? See here starting at 1:00:
And now, the Defense Department is buying 400 million worth of "electric armoured vehicles" from Tesla. :rofl:
And uh oh, as that doesn't look good, so they ditched the "Tesla" and just use a generic term, but who on Earth thinks there's going to be any bidding process. Those contracts are the reason Elon is so interested in working at the White House. :wink:
And as Elon's Tesla cars are facing hard times as it is now a political statement to buy a Tesla, Elon surely will need those government contracts for sure!
Another day in Corruptoland...
Are you saying that Land's thesis is germane to the attempts of the present administration?
frank has proposed that the ascendancy of Trump is an outcome of the processes discussed by Nick Land, whose essay is available here.
Well, Land refers to your neck of the woods more than the U.S.A. For example, Singapore gets a big thumbs up.
What then, is your interest in the present topic?
Okay. Read the essay and get back to me.
Suddenly, you are in the game.
Elon Musk's DOGE agency is at the centre of controversy in the US. So what is it?
It suggests the main game might be setting up "Government by AI"... Not at all concerning, that. All good.
It was written in 2012. Call it deep background for philosophers. But it's not analytic philosophy. It's written in the context of post-modernism and articulates what was going on at the time in a dialectical framework. It's easier to follow than much stuff that goes under the label of post-modernism, but it's a wild ride nonetheless. No, I don't buy it, but I think I understand the issues better - and why Musk and Trump are behaving as they are.
You also need to get your head around accelerationism as well. Try Andy Beckett in the Guardian of 11 May 2017 or a Google search for "accelerationism.
Quoting Banno
Perhaps. But has links that suggest a more mundane motivation, and that's almost a relief.
I did say "almost" a relief. Don't get me wrong. This stuff is really scary. Philosophy is a way of coping, given that there's nothing I can do about it.
True.
[quote=Washington Post]"Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for large scale social deception, Musk proclaimed in an X post that has racked up more than 76,000 shares and 35 million views. Theyre a total scam. Just wow. ...
The contract was real, but the Orwellian phrase Musk seized on to suggest a shadowy conspiracy wasnt what it seems. A slightly closer look would have revealed that the contract, signed during President Donald Trumps first term, was for help defending against cyberattacks that is, combating deception, not fueling it. And it went to a separate division of the company, not the news agency.
Musks misinterpretation went viral, amplified by Trump as proof of corrupt ties between the radical left media and the deep state.
The Reuters brouhaha was the latest example of what is quickly becoming a familiar playbook as Musks U.S. DOGE Service sweeps through federal agencies for evidence of waste, fraud and corruption. However endemic federal misspending is, Musk has repeatedly misrepresented facts on X to bolster unfounded claims of wrongdoing. Like the U.S. Agency for International Development, Politico and others before it, Reuters has been cast as a villain in a narrative spun by Musk in which nefarious left-wing schemes lurk behind programs he targets for cuts and those who stand in the way. The worlds richest man was tapped to lead the project on the premise that he would bring his private-sector business acumen to bear on bloated government budgets. But as the owner and most followed user of X, he has also wielded a social media bully pulpit and marshaled a crowd of online loyalists to disparage and discredit each agency, program and funding recipient he targets for cuts. In some cases, the truth has been collateral damage. ...
When his DOGE employees moved this month to wrest control of USAID, Musk took to X to call the organization evil, criminal and a vipers nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America. Instead of drawing on a long history of bipartisan concerns about misspending at the agency, Musk popularized false claims that USAID and other agencies were spending millions of dollars to fund the news outlet Politico, promising that the gravy train would be deleted. (In fact, the agencies were paying far smaller sums for subscriptions to the outlets Pro products, which provide specialized policy news to businesses and governments.) ...
With Musk using the social media platform he owns as a propaganda organ to promote his work for the Trump administration, Were seeing the emergence of state social media in the USA.[/quote]
Not the first time when Trump finds "waste", "the deepstate" and "lousy agreements" from the decisions his own previous administration did. But who cares about the little things as those...
60 Minutes on the Woodchipping of U.S.A.I.D.
Quoting BBC
[quote=Washington Post;https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/17/elon-musk-x-target-critics-federal-employees/]Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette (pictured) works at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on reducing bureaucratic waste. He also happens to be blind. So when he criticized Elon Musks U.S. DOGE Service in testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Musk unleashed an online attack Hedtler-Gaudette described as surreal in its juvenile bigotry.
First, Musk retweeted a post on X noting that the blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste and added two laughing/crying emojis. The tweet garnered more than 21 million views, and sparked dozens of hateful messages to Hedtler-Gaudettes account.
He couldnt see s--- perfect excuse for being unable to perform your job, one poster said. The DEI blind guy cant see fraud. U cant make up this garbage, another wrote. One person even called for posters to surface Hedtler-Gaudettes bank account.
The episode illustrates how Musks unparalleled online reach has given him a powerful tool to attack individuals who criticize DOGE, with one post able to spark hundreds of blistering responses from his followers.
Last week, he amplified baseless claims about the judge who overturned Trumps funding freeze on federal grants that named his government employee daughter. Musk has called for the dismissal of journalists who have written about DOGE, calling their actions possibly criminal. As he hunts for places to slash the federal bureaucracy, the billionaire has reposted the names and titles of individual government employees, insinuating they should be fired.
Digital rights experts say the situation has created an unprecedented imbalance in power. Musks massive online following, his ownership of a social media platform where he can dictate content moderation rules, and his position heading a government entity with access to private data, give him a unique ability to threaten those who question him and chill dissenting speech.[/quote]
This is becoming a pattern. Musk can dog whistle his 250 million strong following on X to ridicule, shame and belittle anyone who opposes or even questions his and DOGE's activities. And he often spreads outright lies, which of course the hapless victims are defenseless against, particularly when Musk is implicitly backed by The Emperor. As I said earlier on (but deleted), it's a juggernaut of mendacity (and this time it stays!)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/climate/trump-nnsa-nuclear-staff-reinstated?cid=ios_app
In the eventual wisdom of hindsight - which may not be available, because it requires there to be a future - my prediction is that DOGE will come to be seen as the most egregious and idiotic blunder in the history of the government of the United States of America.
Well, if you can or will save your Republic.
It can also seen as the shrewd radical way to dismantle government bureaucracy... as the Trumpists will hope it to be. Who cares that it doesn't go "by the book", Congress is the problem, right?
Because the way in a Republic, the thing would have gone like this: Trump would have made Elon and the other guy to look through government spending. They would do this for several months. Then they would forward their findings to the President, who then would approach the Congress to change the existing laws and spending by new legislation, that should pass both houses. And this would take time. Far more than the less than a month that now has gone. But this would be the case, if Trump and his followers would want the Republic to operate as the Constitution says.
But they don't. The don't give a fuck about the Constitution.
As I've said, the Republicans will embrace the separation of powers, the role of Congress and it's oversight and the fundamental structures of a Republic ONLY if they lose the Presidency. Yet otherwise they are totally happy in turning the President to the role of a Caesar. It's really remarkable as how it's playing out in the US compared to the history of Rome turning from the Republic to an autocracy. (Of course you simply cannot talk about Caeser or Augustus in the same level as Trump)
Yet the rules in a Republic sould be same for everybody, which ultimately shows that Trump-Republicans have absolutely no respect for the Constitution of for what a Republic stands for.
Every American who doesn't understand that the country is in a Constitutional crisis is either ignorant or simply doesn't care at all about their own Constitution.
All I can say here is if the New York Times characterizes Musk's actions as such then it must be true because they have no bias and all their reporting is always truthful and accurate. :lol:
Try a different article. DOGE has read only access to the payment system. They are only making recommendations. Of course this is counter to what the liberally biased establishment narrative is so it will be glossed over, even if it is a key demarcation of DOGE's power
https://apnews.com/article/treasury-systems-trump-bessent-doge-musk-08eb241fc60807b5e1c7b35fcdaee245
Really? Lol.
Just to give ONE example:
But you live in your dreamworld of DOGE just making "recomendations".
Quoting philosch
So the media shouldn't report on what Trump is doing by executive orders, not by following things as they are usually are done in a Republic with separation of powers?
Do notice, that many commentators do agree that there is waste. Here it's really about the method.
And where do you put the ideas of Canada being the 51st state or the US annexing Greenland, even possibly by force? Or how about the Mar-a-Gaza proposal?
So I said I didn't like agenda driven propaganda from media on either side and you think I said the media shouldn't report on what Trump is doing by executive orders? You are demonstrating the problem which I'm pointing at. How is it possible that all of Joe Biden's executive orders were wonderful and all of Trump's are evil? I would much rather have seen 50% of Biden's were good and 50% bad and the same for Trump. I don't really mean necessarily 50, but some reasonable split. But if the news media is 98% democrat the you would expect to see the bias that is present. That's all I'm getting at.
As for the State of Canada or Greenland or Gaza, I think that is all silliness, I believe he's trolling to get people to soften up for negotiations. I don't like the methodology but am willing to see where those negotiations lead. I'm a registered independent and not really here to defend Trump's politics. I just saw the original quote about the New York Times held out as if it was written by the hand of "god".
I've taken the time on several occasions to listen to the same news story on CNN and then Fox. It's as if we have two alternate realities. We need someone in the middle, that's what I would truly like to see because neither Fox or CNN or the The New York Times can be trusted. I do not want to see any censorship however, just a news source then can be vetted and shown to be mostly unbiased. I have even checked the sites that report to have charts on which news outlets are the most biased and those sites have a biases that you can see.
I have no idea if the one example you have shown above is real, if the person writing has an axe to grind, there's no way to vet that story. If I hate Trump and DOGE then it's gotta be true and if I'm MAGA the it's an obvious case of Trump derangement. I'm neither, so I'm left to ponder if it's true or not, just let's say I'm highly suspicious that even if there's some truth there that the way it's presented is skewed. Take the following quote;
This quote in particular I would love to see proof of this. A decent reporter would follow up on this hyperbolic claim by a source and vet it. They'd want to see the actual harassment from the official DOGE web site and that would be a start. But instead they simple report this as if no proof was necessary. They do say "alleged" as a CYA but then make no attempt to verify because why would they? What if they did and found out the dude was full of BS, they would lose the story and we can't have that, because it's already supposed that DOGE and Musk are DR. Evil and his minions. Do you imagine for one second that if they had actual proof that this guy was harassed by the Official DOGE website that they wouldn't have provided it?Come on man! Then they would not have had to say "alleged". It's sloppy or lazy at best, deliberate propagandizing at worst.
However in the spirit of having an open mind I'll accept proof of that claim. Prove it. Let's see what constitutes official web page harassment. If that story get's a real vetting I'll by it. But until then it's just another member of the echo chamber, that is the current media establishment, spouting off
I'm skeptical because of just the way you tried to suggest I don't think reporters should report on executive orders from Trump when I said no such thing.
As someone who tries to stay open minded in the middle I have found more and more I have no where to go to get decently reported news.
Do you believe the reports concerning the Mass Firing of Federal Employees?
How about the Closure of Federal Agencies without the approval of Congress?
Here is report on Probationary Workers by Business Insider. Ironically, much of the information in the report comes from OPM, one of the agencies subject to the order.
Presidents giving executive orders simply shows their lack of capability to put through actual legislation.
No, I do notice the pro-democrat bias. That has been for a long time, yet it simply doesn't matter so much if you take just a little bit of time to look at things yourself. Best way is simply to read the actual speeches of the politicians, not the commentary of journalists what the politician said. In the time of internet, that isn't so hard to do. I've always been skeptic when some party is called "fascist" or "extreme-right". The true extreme-right cannot hide itself. Even the populist comes in many levels and how they respect laws and norms of a republic differs.
Quoting philosch
Many try to desperately promote this view, but I think it's wrong. Trump really means what he says. Once you look at his actions from this viewpoint, it actually makes sense. Likely he won't go so far to order a military operation against Denmark, but likely Denmark won't give a message that it's ready defend it's territory even by military means. Denmark is just desperately hoping that Trump will move on and forget the whole idea (just as Panama hopes). That got Denmark off the hook last time.
But have any journalist ask Trump about his aspirations about Greenland, and he will, until the last day of his presidency, say that it's on the table and the means to get Greenland are open too. He won't back down.
Or just look at what Trump wanted for Ukraine to sign to:
Zelenskyi refused the paper, especially not being given any kind of security assurances. So there's your ally in Trump. But perhaps this should be reported more favorably and more positively for Trump.
But I don't just "believe" those articles. For instance "the closure of federal agencies without congressional approval" OMG the world is coming to an end. The articles that link don't point to a single agency that's actually been closed and primarily focus on one that the white house or Trump will close in an action that doesn't require congressional approval (see below) Musk has done the review and given Trump the recommendation. In addition, Trump has the authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_reorganization_authority#:~:text=It%20permits%20the%20president%20to,presidents%20on%2016%20separate%20occasions.
Fact 1. DOGE has no power other than recommendation, all the power is Trump's
Fact 2. For most of the agencies in question they won't be shutdown. The few that might be are well within Trump's authority to do so without congressional approval.
Fact 3. No agency has been dissolved as of this writing.
I've been looking at the following bias charts and find them helpful or enlightening rather but as pointed out in this article even they can't be relied upon in every case. It's up to the individual to do as much looking as they can.
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/media-literacy/2021/should-you-trust-media-bias-charts/
Do I know if USAID should be shut down or in this case absorbed into the State Department, not sure. I'd like to read a dispassionate and centrist article on it. It clearly has issues and does a lot of good. Maybe the good it does could be done more efficiently by State. Maybe there is a ton of fraud going to countries bilking the US tax payer and maybe that's right wing propaganda. The mainstream articles are so full of obvious bias that's laced all through their articles in the form of doomsday like rhetoric, I have no real idea whether USAID on balance is decent agency or a waste of huge sums of money.
My original objection was blindly believing whatever comes out of the NY Times as gospel. Looks like Reuters and the AP are decent but on any given story better do your own research if the Title of the article itself is hyperbolic. That basically guarantees the article is one-sided emotionally hyped propaganda. Doesn't mean there won't be a fact or two, just means you are not getting the whole story, you are getting an agenda driven perspective.
Here's and ABC example article;
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elon-musks-government-dismantling-fight-stop/story?id=118576033
Instead of just reporting on the facts of the DOGE entity trying to reign in government waste, you get lines like the following pulled from the article;
"DOGE employees, many of whom have no government experience, have been going through data systems, shutting down DEI programs and in some cases, whole agencies"
Problem with this sentence. The "no government experience" line is meaningless for starters and is implying the auditors are not competent by inference. Then the "in some cases whole agencies" and as I've pointed out not only does DOGE no have that power, no agency has been abolished as of today. So the sentence is mostly inaccurate and indefensible. That's ABC news for you.
You cannot find a positive article about DOGE in the mainstream news media. You won't find a critical article of DOGE on FOX. You know the truth is somewhere in the middle but dammed if I can find one.
Do you think they're dismantling bureaucracy, or dismantling the government? What if Trump's hatred of 'the deep state' is actually just hatred of the state? Does that make Trump an 'enemy of the state'?
Sure but that wasn't the point. In the hands of the Dem President they are hailed and in the hands of the Rep President they are ridiculed and despised as authoritarian weapons' according to most news outlets.
I also disagree that the best way to know what's what is to read speeches. I would think the end result of actions is where you would gain the most insight.
Quoting ssu
I didn't say he didn't mean it. It's precisely that he does mean it that it works. If you were a poker player you would know this. I'm not desperate to prove anything. All I know is so far in each case he has landed concessions from the parties involved even if it's just to open up talks.
Okay lets take a quick swipe at this particular quote
Notice the emotionally charged starving your children clause reference by an un-named source. Because that's what an evil Orange man would do. So would the US government, we go around starving children everywhere. We are the most generous and caring country the world has ever seen. I have no reason to believe the line quoted here, there's no verified source, it could be total BS for all I know. Let's wait to see how the war ends and if now we let the Ukrainian children starve to death after spending hundreds of billions on their defense. It is a ridiculous, unsupported and hyperbolic statement. I'm not doubting we've asked for things back, just in the way it's presented here.
[quote=The Daily Beast] Musks team of youngsters, as first reported by WIRED on Sunday, is Akash Bobba, 21, a student at the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Coristine, 19, a student at Northeastern University in Boston; and Ethan Shaotran, 22, who said in September he was a senior at Harvard.
The ones who actually have degrees, or at least have left college, are: Luke Farritor, 23, who attended the University of Nebraska without graduating; Gautier Cole Killian, a 24-year-old who attended McGill University; and Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old who attended Berkeley;
The groups relative lack of experienceespecially no previous positions in government workhas Democrats crying foul they were granted access to sensitive records while remaining largely in the shadows, away from public scrutiny.
All six desperately tried to cover their digital tracks recently, almost all of them deleting LinkedIn profiles, X accounts and even Facebook. [/quote]
As for Musk's accountability for his actions, why, he's not even responsible! Just 'an advisor'!
[quote=Wired; https://www.wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk-leadership-administrator/]President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly affirmed Musks leadership of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But according to a new court filing from the White House, the administrator of DOGE isnt Elon Musk after all. Who is? No one knows. The White House wont tell the public, an administration lawyer has reportedly said he had no idea, and even people who work for the US DOGE Service cant get a straight answer.
On Monday evening, Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House Office of Administration, claimed Musk wasnt actually in charge of the so-called department he has championed for months. Fisher issued a sworn statement in a lawsuit brought by the state of New Mexico and 13 other Democratic attorneys general accusing Musk of exercising authority beyond the scope of his role. Rather than serving as the DOGE administrator or an employee of DOGE at all, Fisher said, Musks formal role is senior advisor to the president with no greater authority than other senior White House advisors. This could make Musks authority and standing at USDS legally murkyespecially as a number of lawsuits embroil the organizations activities[/quote]
Lack of experience looking at books isn't a deal breaker and just what do you think is so different about government work? I keep hearing this..."well they are smart and well educated, maybe whiz kids without much experience but they haveno gov work experience" OMG as if this actually means something. I've been working side by side with government workers doing government work for over 20 years and it's the same color as non-government work, the statement is meant to convey or evoke this reaction and it's meaningless as to ascertain whether or not some one can do a particular job. This is an article written with an agenda to do what exactly it has done for you, namely confirmed your bias. I've seen this kind of rationale put forth over and over. In the confirmation hearings, Senators who have no experience in all kinds of areas pontificating about other people's competencies in regards to this mysteriously very special "government" work.
I've read some of your other posts on different topics and I very much appreciate your thoughts in other areas. But here you are not demonstrating the same rigor of thought. I'm commenting on bias in the media and I get these articles sent back to me, not as proof of a dispassionately reported story but rather a story about people's opinion as to the competency of other's they know nothing about other than some bio-statistics. I can only assume you're simply trying to convince me that the whole DOGE experiment is bad. It's a completely agenda driven story and you know it is, you're not stupid. You are trying to convince me of something that has little to do with why I responded to this thread, namely the worship at the alter of whatever source confirms our political views. I will stay independent and in the middle as much as I can. Show me a well sourced, balanced story about DOGE, I double dog dare you.
Trump/Musk are dismantling the American Government before the world's eyes. And right now, the betrayal of Ukraine has begun.
Nice troll. Ridiculously hyperbolic nevertheless but a fair attempt to evoke some emotional response. Not interested.
The problem with this approach is that when things are done right, it's not newsworthy, it's just the way things are expected to be done, so there is no news there, therefore no coverage. When things are done wrongly, there is news there, and so there is coverage.
Present one yourself.
So far, your presumption that alarm at executive actions is overwrought is only that. How is that not a form of gaslighting?
Where is the bias in this report?
After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds.
Edit to add: Another emerging Republican reaction: You would see lawsuits: Susan Collins fires new warning shot at Trump on spending.
More evidence continues to emerge from eyewitnesses about the actual events and procedures surrounding January 6. More and more it looks like Hochschild's direct contacts were more reliable than mainstream outlets.
This speaker said she entered the Capitol, and strolled around, and gave a speech - twice! But some actual photographs of the day were like this:
So - is this speaker actually claiming that those photographs were staged? Faked? That the riots didn't happen? That nobody was injured, that nobody broke forcefully into the Capitol building and assaulted law officers?
I don't understand how that can be the case. Perhaps you might be able to explain it. Because from where I sit, what I'm seeing is indeed a conspiracy - and I'm no conspiracy theorist - to whitewash the January 6th abomination, so as to exculpate the role of the now President and his violent supporters and to re-write history in terms favourable to him. And for some completely unfathomable reason, people are prepared to believe it.
The article, Once Upon a Presidency, is an attempt to sympathetically convey the perspective of supporters of Donald Trump (including those who were at the January 6th attack on the Capitol), portraying the ignorance, question-begging, conspiracy-theorizing, hypocrisy, and anti-intellectualism common to Trumpism as reasonable or understandable. While absurd, it is at the same time actually a useful look at recent events through a mindset many readers of Daily Nous will find alien.
The article caught the attention of Mount St. Marys students, who have launched a petition calling for Professor Hochschilds resignation. Brea Purdie, the student who authored the petition, writes:
I find it repulsive that Hochschild calls for respectability and humanity when the actions of Trump supporters on January 6 proved to be less than that. I find it telling that he asks for decency when there are prominent white supremacists rubbing elbows at the same event as he, and proudly boasting racial symbolism along with the American flag. Lastly, I find it incriminating that he went to such frivolous extremes to weave a narrative in which he is the victim of attending an event where people lost their lives, and white supremacy ran rampant. For him to call for respect in a situation where his peers call for the eradication of my being, yet he claims to uphold pro-life, is bigotry. I refuse to accept or respect this. [/quote]
I don't know the upshot of all that, as it took place in 2021, but I will acknowledge being extremely dissappointed that this scholar, of whom I had formed a positive opinion, would go in to bat for such a dreadful event in American history. I can only ascribe it to malign influence that Trump is exerting on American culture, much to its detriment.
The love in the air:
Leaving aside the riot, are you a fellow traveler of the anti-vaccine crowd Gold hung out with back in the day?
I would suggest listening further. Do you think she was lying? Why do you think she said it was peaceful?
Yes. One account, completely contrary to all the voluminously reported facts.
This sort of ad hominem is something I don't often see from you, but I suppose we're in a political thread.
Well that must be it. She had an experience of violent rioting but said she had a peaceful experience because she's just a big old liar. That was easy. Convenient, too.
Quoting Wilful ignorance': doctor who joined Capitol attack condemned for Covid falsehoods
Quoting Leontiskos
A 'notorious liar' would be more accurate. You want to be careful who you're lending your credibility to, Leontiskos, if you wish to retain your own.
So you didn't finish watching the video. It seems like watching it might have threatened your preconceived notions, so you decided not to.
I was curious, not trying to make it about Gold's testimony which can be questioned by a review of the facts.
Gold is a notorious liar and propagandist. She is not worth listening to.
Answer the question:
Quoting Wayfarer
Is that what you believe?
Watch the video if you want to have a discussion of the video. I think this is a good opportunity for you to do some critical thinking rather than just jumping to the conclusion that folks are outright lying.
SO, you think I should listen to a notorious liar and propagandist, and that decisions made on the basis of the media coverage and the January 6th Commission are 'preconcieved notions'?
But she's obviously lying. I hadn't heard of her, so I googled her and found the Guardian article:
Quoting Wilful ignorance': doctor who joined Capitol attack condemned for Covid falsehoods
She's a notorious liar, propagandist and vaccine skeptic. Why should I waste time listening to her? 'Oh, some guy on the internet says she's smart' :roll:
I offered you a direct interview of eyewitness testimony so you would have an opportunity to cease your post hoc rationalization with your favorite ideological sources. I guess you prefer that ideology to such an extent that you can't even listen to eyewitness testimony. Such is prejudice in the extreme.
Your self description. One radical anti-vaxxers word. You're trolling, over and out.
I watched it to the end. The claims amount to something like "I was shoplifting for a couple of hours in the store but saw nobody getting hurt."
Quoting Leontiskos
Then what is the value of her testimony measured against all the violence that was filmed and reported upon by others?
Okay, well thanks for that.
Quoting Paine
Not sure what you're talking about. Are you claiming that her prepared speech was inciting?
Quoting Paine
Your video was completely non sequitur and this comment is a non-starter. Gold is not claiming that no violence occurred on January 6. Hochschild obviously does not claim that either. They are contextualizing a common narrative. Two things can be true at the same time, after all.
If she is not claiming that about violence, what is the point of what she does observe? How does it change your understanding of what happened?
It supports the thesis of Hochschild's article that my post referenced:
Quoting Joshua Hochschild, Begging your Pardon
(I.e. there was a lot of political maneuvering involved in the portrayals, events, and sentencing of January 6.)
Did you watch this video?
I don't think your characterization is accurate tho.
Those supposed peaceful visitors are not why they got access to the building.
Yes. I want to show you my bumper sticker collection.
According to Hochschild police voluntarily let in a number of people on the east side. Are you contradicting him? I was not there, so I don't know for sure. Maybe you were there and you know that the police did no such thing.
As a member of TPF I am already familiar with it. :wink:
Does the man say when this happened in the context of the attacks on police lines?
Would you accept that such context is pivotal to understanding this report?
Did you find nothing at all disconcerting about Gold's testimony?
The cashout of what Gold (and Hochschild) had to say seems to be this: the common conception is that a large number of people were tried, or convicted, or accepted a plea bargain, and therefore a large number of people were involved in criminal activity on January 6, which in turn strengthens the quasi-coup narrative. But it turns out that many of the trials, convictions, and plea bargains were shenanigans, so the common conception begins to break down. And this obviously impacts how one views the pardons.
Do you not find it at all strange that Gold was charged with a 20-year felony for witness tampering and evidence shredding? Or does her past involvement with the anti-vaccine crowd invalidate any questions that might be raised here?
The validity of the prosecutions or the deficiencies of the trial processes for particular defendants has no bearing on the "quasi-coup narrative." Violent or not, the participants were repeating the language of their leader. And he has blessed them all with pardons. A coup is what a regime does. A crowd protesting a stolen election is another thing. They all did not spontaneously have this idea.
There were a lot of trials. I doubt this report establishes a principle that can be applied to them all, especially those that involve assault.
Sure it does. If 1600 are charged with crimes then the insurrection narrative is plausible. If 95% of those charges are bogus then the insurrection narrative is laughable. It makes an enormous difference.
The liberals never seem to ask themselves why the shenanigans are taking place. "Purely accidental," they tell themselves.
Gold's account may be true or not. That in no way informs us as to how others were treated or whether their charges were bogus.
The charges were not based upon participating in an insurrection. Here is a breakdown of the charges. The following point was emphasized:
Quoting Department of Justice
To the degree that you are correct about Gold's case being different from more vile transgressions is the extent of the injustice perpetrated by Trump's blanket pardon.
The "insurrection narrative" pertains to what Trump and his team attempted, not his believers. The criminal charge is based upon fraud:
The Grand Jury indictment reads in part:
Quoting DOJ
DOGE employee cuts fall heavily on agency that regulates Musks Tesla
Quoting WPost
[quote=WaPo] Heres the wreckage as of Feb. 14, as compiled by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.?
At least 11,500 Americans and 54,575 foreigners have lost their jobs. Nearly $1 billion in payments for work already done has been frozen. Nearly $500 million in food is sitting in ports, ships and warehouses. In Syria, a country struggling to recover from chaos, food and other support for nearly 900,000 people has been suspended. In West Africa, 3.4 million people in 11 countries have lost drug treatment for deadly tropical diseases. At least 328,000 HIV-positive people in 25 countries arent getting lifesaving drugs.[/quote]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/21/usaid-trump-freeze-marocco-foreign-aid/
(I recall, but cant re-find, a remark by a Republican, dismissing concern, along the lines of some kid crying because he didnt get his milk bottle.)
The poor baby, it doesn't get fed and it starts crying. Best to just walk away and ignore it.
And all in the whim of basically what? An executive order? Or even without that?
Americans should understand that this is severe breach of the separation of powers and a Republic simply doesn't function like this. An autocracy works like this. The US has now gone overboard to be quite similar as Latin American countries, which try to change their huge problems with a President taking on dictatorial powers. And the end result is usually ugly.
If you think that things might change when Midterms come, will they? Even if a huge Democrat win. Trump is already sidelining the Congress, why would he then consider more.
DOGE simply tries to do quickly as much as possible before it is shut down.
I have been anxious for my friends' and family's future, but I see that for many, the future is now.
Yes, some congress critters are already talking about codifying whatever Musk does in the next budget.
Midterms are surely a long way off. There will at least be a return of the Legislative Branch with a Democratic win.
I think that pressure will build up on the GOP as the blowback hits more and more people and local economies. I don't know if that will happen quickly enough to salvage institutions.
How Musk's actions fit into plans for an autocratic takeover of the US government.
It could be a child-survival and maternal health project, for instance -- training local women in how to manage common diarrheal diseases in infants; setting up birth control programs; training in basic public health -- hand washing, using sunlight to improve water safety, etc. Setting up a district record keeping system for vaccinations might be done. It might be food security programs -- introducing easy to grow high-nutrient plants like passion fruit.
Introducing composting toilets can reduce disease transmission (resulting from helter-skelter outdoor defecation) and produces a safe and useful fertilizer. The toilets can be locally constructed, but the basic materials still need to be purchased which might be more than a poor family or community can manage.
Some efforts will fail: a program to distribute small concrete domes to cover toilet pits failed, because the local people didn't think the concrete shells were thick enough, and squatting on a thin cover over a shit hole was just not acceptable. The covers were thick enough, but they were not confidence inspiring.
A Norwegian project set up a fish processing plant at Lake Turkana in Kenya. It was unsuccessful because the usually competent Norwegian development program (Redd Barna) hadn't investigated the situation deeply enough. The beneficiaries were animal herders who didn't like fishing, didn't like fish processing, and didn't eat fish. Major flop!
It takes time for new practices to be taught, to be accepted, to become community-wide knowledge, and to last over the long run. Kill the program and gains may evaporate.
Quoting BC
I know, from what little I've read, the ripple effects of Musk 'feeding USAID through the woodchipper' are going to affect entire countries. As I said already, it's the opposite of philanthropy - it's large-scale misanthropy, again masquerading as ideological correctness ('stamping out waste and fraud'.)
Throw in abuse and you have the Trump program. Waste, because what is being tossed into the wood chipper are real assets providing real benefits to Americans and others. Fired talent is wasted. Employees and the public are abused. Undoubtedly something fraudulent is going on in Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (sic).
Of course there is waste, some fraud (DT knows all about that), and abuse in government. Spending trillions of dollars a year can't be done without at least some W, F, & A occurring. I can't keep track of the precise amount of spare change in my pocket over a month, and I try very hard to do so.
The fraud that exists is not in the payroll, and it isn't in entitlement spending. If it's anywhere, it's in military procurement where cost+++ seems to be the rule. Since the military feeds from such a deep trough, it can afford the jacked up retail prices it pays.
Outside of W, F, & A there is misdirected spending, ineffective spending, duplicate spending, and unnecessary spending (all subject to various definitions). That's harder to find than crude fraud. I've worked in several programs which received federal and state funds on a contract basis and sometimes we may not have delivered what we claimed to be delivering. We said we were reducing the incidence of AIDS. Were we? If the incidence of AIDS was reduced was that because of our efforts or some other factor--like intense news coverage? We all the condoms handed out used? Were needles always clean? Did the target population sign up for prophylactic medication? Did every AIDS patient take their meds all the time.
Our work was a small example, but the work we did was duplicated in thousands of locations across the US and in other countries. (Among at-risk groups where prevention projects are lacking, case loads go up.)
Slasher budget cuts ends up pulling the plug on excellent programs as often as only passable programs, whether it's in forestry, health care, education, agriculture, biomedical research, and so on.
You get this. (One of my sisters says I'm always stating the obvious. Probably true, but not everybody understands what's going on.)
Ditto.
English stole "detto" from Italian in the 17th century (those damned cultural appropriators, rotten cultural imperialists, filthy cultural thieves) where it meant "said previously". By the 19th century it had become part of our family, a comfortable piece of furniture in the house. "Ditto" derives ultimately from Latin dicere, to say. Latin, of course, was the language of those arch-imperialists, rampant cultural appropriators, and world class cultural thieves of Rome.
[quote=Judge Questions Constitutionality of Musks Cost-Cutting Operation, NY Times] A federal judge in Washington said on Monday that the way the Trump administration set up and has been running Elon Musks so-called Department of Government Efficiency may violate the Constitution.
The skepticism expressed by the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, did not come as part of a binding ruling, but it suggested that there could be problems looming for Mr. Musks organization, which is also known as the U.S. DOGE Service.
Based on the limited record I have before me, I have some concerns about the constitutionality of U.S.D.S.s structure and operations, Judge Kollar-Kotelly said at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington. She expressed particular concern that it violated the appointments clause of the Constitution, which requires leaders of federal agencies to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Mr. Musk was neither nominated nor confirmed.
.
At the hearing, Judge Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly asked a lawyer for the government, Bradley Humphreys, to identify the services administrator. He was unable to answer her.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly also asked Mr. Humphreys what position Mr. Musk holds. Mr. Humphreys responded that Mr. Musk was not the DOGE Services administrator, or even an employee of the organization, echoing what a White House official had declared in a separate case challenging the powers of the group.
When the judge pressed him on what Mr. Musks job actually was, Mr. Humphreys said, I dont have any information beyond hes a close adviser to the president.
That exchange seemed to irk Judge Kollar-Kotelly, who signaled her skepticism about the organizations structure and powers.
It does seem to me if you have people that are not authorized to carry out some of these functions that theyre carrying out that does raise an issue, she said. I would hope that by now we would know who is the administrator, who is the acting administrator and what authority do they have? [/quote]
Its a very transparent tactic - nobody is responsible for these massive disruptions and layoffs to the Federal workforce.
Musk/DOGE recommended firing federal workers at
? FDA, which oversees Neuralink
? FAA, which oversees SpaceX
? USAID, which probed Starlink
? CFPB, which oversees Tesla's financing arm and a potential payment platform on twitter/X
Meanwhile
[quote=TheDailyBeast]Elon Musk has had it with judges blocking the Trump administrations moves.
The billionaire face of DOGE called for the impeachment of judges in a meltdown on X Tuesday night, following a flurry of court orders blocking the governments bids to freeze funding for foreign aid and federal grants, as well as stem refugee admissions.
The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges, Musk wrote in one post. No one is above the law, including judges.
If ANY judge ANYWHERE can block EVERY Presidential order EVERYWHERE, we do NOT have democracy, we have TYRANNY of the JUDICIARY, he added in another.[/quote]
Zero comprehension of the separation of powers.
And they will not get it. Starting from Trump.
So good luck having that Civil war of yours, because likely you have to fight to get back your Republic. If Americans still want to live in a Republic, that is.
I remember one former Australian prime minister saying that the way to get Trump's respect is simply hold your position. And when looking at the "deals" he makes, he isn't a good negotiator. I think he hasn't gone after Australia yet.
I think that Panama and Denmark just try to avoid the conversation getting back to them as there will be enough calamity in other issue that Trump dips his head into.
With Musk it's quite the same. But it's welcoming to see that from all of the people that have said that "don't give importance to Musk's emails" to their government employees it's Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard. Having then public tantrums in your own social media isn't the most adult thing for Musk to do.
Grok briefly censored criticism of Musk and Trump. It was blamed on a new hire who hadn't 'fully absorbed' the startup's culture.
[sup] Effie Webb · Business Insider · Feb 24, 2025[/sup]
I suppose, with their track records (here's Trump's) it shouldn't come as a surprise.
The programs of USAID that were cancelled uniformly target urgent medical needs around the world. Cancelling urgent health programs on the other side of the world can come back to bite us. There is nothing about the US that provides eternal protection from Sexually Transmitted Infections, Tuberculosis, AIDS, Polio, and many other not-so-famous fatal infections.
Surveillance and statistical keeping is important, but as a health administrator in Africa pointed out, funds to count the dead were also cut.
New MAGA hat: Make America God Awful
[quote=NY TImes]Here are some of the projects that The New York Times has confirmed have been canceled:
A $131 million grant to UNICEFs polio immunization program, which paid for planning, logistics and delivery of vaccines to millions of children.
A $90 million contract with the company Chemonics for bed nets, malaria tests and treatments that would have protected 53 million people.
A project run by FHI 360 that supported community health workers efforts to go door-to-door seeking malnourished children in Yemen. It recently found that one in five children was critically underweight because of the countrys civil war.
All of the operating costs and 10 percent of the drug budget of the Global Drug Facility, the World Health Organizations main supply channel for tuberculosis medications, which last year provided tuberculosis treatment to nearly three million people, including 300,000 children.
H.I.V. care and treatment projects run by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation that were providing lifesaving medication to 350,000 people in Lesotho, Tanzania and Eswatini, including 10,000 children and 10,000 pregnant women who were receiving care so that they would not transmit the virus to their babies at birth.
A project in Uganda to trace contacts of people with Ebola, conduct surveillance and bury those who died from the virus.
A contract to manage and distribute $34 million worth of medical supplies in Kenya, including 2.5 million monthlong H.I.V. treatments, 750,000 H.I.V. tests, 500,000 malaria treatments, 6.5 million malaria tests and 315,000 antimalaria bed nets.
Eighty-seven shelters that took care of 33,000 women who were victims of rape and domestic violence in South Africa.
A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that operates the only source of water for 250,000 people in camps for displaced people located in the center of the violent conflict in the east of the country.
Pre- and postnatal health services for 3.9 million children and 5.7 million women in Nepal.
A project run by Helen Keller Intl in six countries in West Africa that last year provided more than 35 million people with the medicine to prevent and treat neglected tropical diseases, such as trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis.
A project in Nigeria providing 5.6 million children and 1.7 million women with treatment for severe and acute malnutrition. The termination means 77 health facilities have completely stopped treating children with severe acute malnutrition, putting 60,000 children under the age of 5 at immediate risk of death.
A project in Sudan that runs the only operational health clinics in one of the biggest areas of the Kordofan region, cutting off all health services.
A project serving more than 144,000 people in Bangladesh that provided food for malnourished pregnant women and vitamin A to children.
A program run by the aid agency PATH, called REACH Malaria, which protected more than 20 million people from the disease. It provided malaria drugs to children at the start of the rainy season in 10 countries in Africa.
A project run by Plan International that provided drugs and other medical supplies, health care, treatment of malnutrition programming, and water and sanitation for 115,000 displaced or affected by the conflict in northern Ethiopia.
More than $80 million for UNAIDS, the United Nations agency, which funded work to help countries improve H.I.V. treatment, including data collection and watchdog programs for service delivery.
The Presidents Malaria Initiative program called Evolve, which did mosquito control in 21 countries by methods that include spraying insecticide inside homes (protecting 12.5 million people last year) and treating breeding sites to kill larvae.
A project providing H.I.V. and tuberculosis treatment to 46,000 people in Uganda, run by the Baylor College of Medicine Childrens Foundation, Uganda.
Smart4TB, the main research consortium working on prevention, diagnostics and treatment for tuberculosis.
The Demographic and Health Surveys, a data collection project in 90 countries that were crucial and sometimes the only sources of information on maternal and child health and mortality, nutrition, reproductive health and H.I.V. infections, among many other health indicators. The project was also the bedrock of budgets and planning.[/quote]
Part of Trump and Musk's Global Misanthropy efforts.
Officials with Elon Musks group say they want to search for fraud. Privacy law bars the IRS from disclosing tax information to other parts of the government."
In Australia, there was a massive scandal over a similar scheme, dubbed Robodebt, were automatic matching technologies were used to pursue purported social security debts, often without any human oversight. The resulting debacle caused more than a few suicides and ended a few careers. Of course, none of that would matter to Elon Musk, as he'll just chainsaw anyone who stands in his way, with Presidential permission.
[quote=NY Times;https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/us/politics/trump-musk-republicans-congress-judge-impeachment.html]The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges, Mr. Musk wrote this week on X, his social media platform, in one of multiple posts demanding that uncooperative federal judges be ousted from their lifetime seats on the bench.
We must impeach to save democracy, Mr. Musk said in another entry on X after a series of rulings slowed the Trump administrations moves to halt congressionally approved spending and conduct mass firings of federal workers. He pointed to a purge of judges by the right-wing government in El Salvador as part of the successful effort to assert control over the government there.[/quote]
We must impeach to save democracy is directly suggestive of 'We had to destroy the village in order to save it', from William Caley, officer in charge of the Mai Lai massacre,
If the goal is to pave the way for greater authoritarianism, the judicial branch would have to be rendered powerless. This occurred to me a while back, so I was expecting some ramp up in anti-judiciary rhetoric.
In 1930's Louisiana, there was a governor who became a dictator by taking over the state legislature. He fired some judges and was eventually shot and killed by the son of one of the judges he fired. If history repeats, we should expect assassination attempts after judges are removed. The problem is that even if all the key players were killed, there's no viable opposition to take over right now. That doesn't mean it couldn't develop, but if it did, the US would sink into internal conflict in a way it hasn't experienced since the Civil War. I think most likely the US will be off the world stage for the foreseeable future.
It wouldn't be all that difficult to render the judicial system powerless.
First, the legal system is effective when the people agree to follow it.
Second, the judicial system has (had?) great authority, but it doesn't have great power.
If an executive at the federal or state level decides to carry out unconstitutional acts, a court can not summon the army to force them to cease and desist. The court has federal Marshalls, and possibly local police, and sheriffs. True, there are sanctions, contempt of court declarations, and so on but these substantially depend on willing cooperation.
Some conservatives (Trump allies) have floated the idea that not all court injunctions have to be obeyed. That marks a real crack in the system.
Civil society, law, democracy, reliable money, God, etc. all depend on faith--belief, confidence--in the system. We have had these things because we believed these good things were valid and acted accordingly. If everyone with power to act agrees that a court decision is valid, it will be enforced. If that agreement falls apart, then perhaps it will not be enforced.
At the moment, all sorts of executive actions have taken place in the Federal Government, and a lot of them have been challenged in court. But a court challenge is only one step -- it has to work its way through the appeals system on its way to the SCOTUS. The Supremes may turn out to be supremely disappointing, allowing what were previously unacceptable actions to proceed.
And if the Supremes rule against the executive branch, and the executive branch ignores them, then we're screwed.
Anyway there was a major victory for the courts late last week when Trumps peremptory firing of the an inspector general was struck down:
[quote=Reuters] A U.S. judge on Saturday declared President Donald Trump's firing of the head of a federal watchdog agency illegal in an early test of the scope of presidential power likely to be decided at the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington had previously ruled Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel who is responsible for protecting whistleblowers, could remain in his post pending a ruling.[/quote]
There are numerous other suits being contested. MAGA is making noises about possibly defying or ignoring legal injunctions. It hasnt happened yet but the writing is on the wall, although what action could be taken in response, and by whom, is far from clear. (Wouldnt it be great to see Musk arrested and taken into custody for contempt of court?) Trump and Musk are utterly and flagrantly in breach of accepted practice and constitutional norms, theyre far outstripping the so-called check and balances in the system by simply trampling them.
So their power just came down to respect for rule of law? What about the National Guard?
The National Guard is integrated into the Federal command structure. States have some authority toward mobilization but not an override of Executive decisions.
[quote=DOGE Fires, then Recalls, Workers Essential to Maintenance of US Nuclear Weapons; https://wapo.st/43kvcl0]Amid the tumult of mass firings, the Trump administrations dismissal of workers who maintain Americas nuclear weapons delivered perhaps the greatest shock. These are people with highly sensitive jobs, the Energy Department would later acknowledge, who should have never been fired.
Almost all the workers were rehired in an embarrassing about-face, a prominent example of how the administration has had to reverse dismissals in multiple instances where its scattershot approach caused deeper damage to agencies than anticipated.
Yet late the night before Valentines Day, the Trump administration perfunctorily fired 17 percent of the National Nuclear Security Administrations workforce, over the strenuous objections of senior nuclear officials.
The employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration are stewards of a sprawling government system that keeps 5,000 nuclear warheads secure and ready. They make sure radiation doesnt leak, weapons dont mistakenly detonate and plutonium doesnt get into the wrong hands.
The president said workers critical to national security would be exempt from the firings. But then there was an active decision to say these positions are not critical to national security, said an official at the nuclear agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. It is so absurd I dont even know what to say.
The episode proved to be among the biggest blunders of Trumps first weeks in office as he deployed the blunt instrument of the U.S. DOGE Service, overseen by billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk, to radically slash government payrolls. (Gift link) [/quote]
That sucks after pretty much having to sign up to maintain contact with what the agency says is the balance of payment.
Let's face it. Law that cannot be enforced is dead letter. Government that does not respect the law is tyranny. What next?
This is why the US is broken. No laws seem to have any effect on the people in power. It doesn't matter how many times lawyers, officials, police, artists or philosophers point towards laws being broken or manipulated.
If the law doesn't have any effect on people abusing their power against the citizens and nation, and no one who's on the side of enforcing the law does anything to uphold the law; the only action left is to remove the power abusers by force.
It's either that, or accept being ruled by these abusers. This is a pretty binary choice for the people. The French at the end of the 18th century could have just accepted the status quo... or not.
Do you mean that I'm caricaturing the situation and there are good reasons for saying that things are not so simple as I represent them? I wouldn't argue with that. But things do seem to be heading that way.
Do you mean that there is no alternative to using legal and democratic means to remove such a Government? I devoutly hope that such means will work. But they don't seem to be working yet.
Quoting Christoffer
Yes, that's the choice. Though there's good reason to think that the French were too disunited to make a collectivve decision and it was more a matter of who won the war. That's the nightmare waiting at the bottom of the cliff. Perhaps the law will get there in the end.
I think that the problem that has occurred in our modern times is that the materialistic and individualistic lifestyle programmed people into being too disjointed to ever mount any form of pressure that amounts to anything but some small protests on the street outside of people in power who couldn't give a shit what "lesser people" says about them.
Society has essentially programmed away the people's sense of community identity, programmed away any revolutionary spirit that could amount to actual threats against people in power. And while some would point at Jan 6th, there's clearly a difference between people in power rallying uneducated manipulated and indoctrinated people to be meat spears in trying to conduct a coup, to that of the people themselves rallying against people in power in order to fight for a better life and not being abused by these people.
Revolution, even by force, does not have to be bloody. The force can also be not to comply with what the enforcers of the people in power inflict on them. Just look at Gandhi's revolution.
If enough people were to occupy places in a way that the state stops functioning properly, in opposition towards the ruling government, then when the government turns to violence, every drop of blood from the people will be a loss for those currently in power.
If everyone who oppose Trump were to organize for something like this, it would have an effect.
But the people won't do it.
If there's anything I hate more than dictators and abusers of power, it's the apathy of the people just doing nothing. Just turn inwards into their own echo chamber, into the comfort of social media spaces were they can complain about everything in a way that makes no difference whatsoever.
Apathetic people deserve any abuse that people in power inflict on them as their apathy rolled out the carpet for this abuse.
I hadn't realized that the SCOTUS' authority was backed by the executive branch. So the SCOTUS actually has no power over the executive. That means we were never too far from dictatorship. All it takes is an executive with the will to ignore the SCOTUS, and a legislative branch that's behind the executive. Voila.
I'm hoping something like that will happen. Non-violent civil disobedience. As you say, it can be a powerful force.
Quoting Christoffer
They may change their minds. But it needs organization. Perhaps it's happening somewhere - quietly.
Quoting frank
It looks as if there's a flaw in the Constitution!
Well, the National Guard is there, along with other parts of the civil and military establishment constituting the government, but it is part of the executive branch of government, which is the branch which might be presently willing to flout the judicial branch.
Some actions of the Trump administration may be unconstitutional, and challenges have been filed in various lower federal courts and they in turn have issued decisions. BUT, that's just the first step in judicial action. Court decisions in these matters will be appealed to higher courts, on up to the top.
Chaos was intended here, and there have been so many questionable actions, so many suits filed, that it is difficult to determine where we are at this point. Trump has currently been in power for only 40 odd days, so clearly his demolition operation is just getting started.
As you know, the Republican Party has majority control of both houses of congress. That's another factor limiting intervention. Not at all incidentally, Trump isn't the only destructive actor here. Senator Mitch McConnell engineered the senate's refusal to take up Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the SCOTUS, claiming it was too late in the administration to act on it--an entirely specious refusal. McConnell helped create the conservative court majority.
Then, of course, the voters who put a conservative majority in both houses of Congress and a loose cannon in the Presidency, are also responsible for where we are.
Remember that Gandhi began his non-violent efforts in South Africa in 1906, and in India in 1920, achieving success (in ending British rule of India) in 1947. It took time and on-going efforts. Even fairly small-scale domestic resistance in the United States has been spasmodic, without successfully building any sort of on-going resistance movement.
Between 500,000 and a million people demonstrated against the Vietnam war on November 15, 1969 in Washington (I was there). It was peaceful, orderly, brief and inspiring. President Nixon was reportedly enraged by the demonstrations, but not so disturbed that he moved to end the war (which ended in 1975 in defeat).
The American Civil Rights movement started in 1954 and achieved legislative success in 1968. This was a more sustained, intensive effort than the anti-Vietnam war movement.
Point is: focussed resistance takes years to achieve success. Had anti-Trumpist organizing began in 2015 and continued, we'd be farther ahead in the game. Instead, a lot of us figured Trump was a one-off aberration who was finished well and good in 2020. Alas...
No, I mean that if a real authoritarianism sets in, there will be no way to overturn it by democratic means. Remember Trump said during the campaign if you voted for him this time you wouldnt have to vote again in the future.
It is the U.S. Marshalls who enforce court orders as well as 'contempt of congress' actions.
Quoting CRS Reports
In the case of impeachment, Congress has more power than Courts because they can strip away the authority of the President altogether. Any officials who obeyed such a person after that would be committing straight up sedition.
The Founders did not figure on a Legislative Branch no longer jealous of their power.
I get that. But do I remember right that when the South Korean President tried to go unconstitutional, the Army just refused to obey his orders? Thus avoiding a heap of anguish and likely bloodshed. But I guess they know from personal experience what authoritarian rule means.
Quoting BC
Quite so. If it was just a question of time, it would be OK. Sort of. But we are talking about wholesale institutional capture here, so a long-drawn-out process risks being frustrated. Do you think it will work otu in the end?
Quoting BC
Well, I hope there are some people who are thinking long-term about this.
Quoting Wayfarer
In hindsight, there was a wonderful ambiguity about that. Did he mean that he couldn't run again? Or something else? It could bear a quite different interpretation now. Though Trump still has plausible deniability.
Doesn't the history of the USA show that democracy may need to be set up by non-democratic means? Other democratic countries have more complicated stories, but I'm pretty sure that none of them established democracy by democratic means. Even Gandhi's non-violent campaign had to face violence.
There are paradoxes around this, to be sure. But it is clear, isn't it, that if authoritarianism sets in, there will be some dreadful decisions to be made by each citizen?
In a top-down response, the military could refuse to obey an illegal order. It could conceivably refuse to obey a legal but unpalatable order. We don't have enough contemporary experience to judge how likely it is that the military will reject a civilian-originated order. The military does have some autonomy; after all, they are THE FORCE, so who would stop them?
Quoting Ludwig V
It will absolutely "work out" in the end, for better or worse. I don't know whether bad resolution will come about or not, or how bad "bad" might be.
Quoting Ludwig V
There are people who have been thinking about this. Unfortunately, the thinkers haven't been in a position to do much about it. For example: Noam Chomsky has been thinking about this stuff for a long time, but Chomsky has never run a campaign to put his observations into effect -- or to even suggest what 'we the people' listening to him ought to do. Some scholars of fascism have published important books; it's up to the readers to act, or not.
Quoting Ludwig V
It has already set in, and not just in the last few weeks. We have seen drift towards authoritarianism in various parts of our culture. For instance, there are workplaces that are run under authoritarian terms. Police forces are more and less authoritarian depending on the demographic being policed. United States History reveals numerous episodes of tyranny conducted by supposedly democratic agents and agencies. On the list: enslavement of Africans; genocide of aboriginal people; the entire confederacy; post-reconstruction vengeance on blacks; Jim Crow laws; ruthless suppression of labor and unionism; McCarthyism; COINTELPRO (FBI infiltration and disruption of leftist organizations); Watergate; and on and on.
You are quite right: Citizens will have to make inconvenient to dreadfully difficult decisions. I am grateful that I am old and may die of natural causes before I am asked to make dreadful choices. On the other hand, I might not die quite quick enough.
Can I please know from what position you're watching this film? It's not one i've seen. Definitely not a documentary.
In case this was missed...
Things really are bad. It's different from last time. The damage being done here is permanent for a few reasons.
Thanks for that. That post is quite right. Nothing can undo the damage that has been done. Outside the US, it's a case of taking a deep breath and adjusting.
Quoting BC
That's true. For me "work out" meant something like "resolve" without a world war and with some sort of rational world order.
Quoting BC
Every country has a history and every history has events to be ashamed of. The relationship between authoritarianism and freedom is complicated and difficult. I think they go together - dark side and light side.
Quoting Paine
They hadn't come across the tactic of institutional capture. It scrambles all that natural responses to a coup. I believe that Musk and Thiel are from South Africa. Perhaps they learnt it there.
Quoting BC
Same here. Not a thought that I'm proud of, though.
What are you talking about?
Then why don't the US citizens who don't want this... do something about it?
The specific mechanism of U.S. politics that causes so many Republicans to act so sheepishly is the Primary Process whereby eligible candidates for offices are selected. MAGA voters have been dominating that group for years. There are those who got through despite that dominance, but it is not like they have their own caucus to assemble and criticize the others in their tribe.
I recognize that changes in voting procedures can give a great advantage to a particular group. But it is interesting to me how people with so little connection with those they empower are the principal cause of the existing regime.
What day is this of the Trump administration? This is only week seven.
Democrats are still shell shocked from losing the election. Didn't electrify them much to have first senile Biden as the candidate before Kamala was rushed their without any primary election. Then they still don't have had enough crap as the trade war is only starting (as is the recession, possibly). Then the MAGA crowd is still quite vocal and hostile. The Washington circle is quite lame and just stunned.
There's not yet the enthusiasm and the feeling to oppose Trump. The MAGA crowd however, has all the time had the enthusiasm as Hillary Clinton called them the deplorables. And of course, first people laughed at Trump. This created the group cohesion among the Trump supporters and after Jan 6th, they see them as part of the revolution.
The "counterrevolutionaries" haven't yet emerged, but when things go worse from here, they might. You see, it's not just the savings, the evident policy of "making the poor pay and take their service, while having brazen corruption". It's the total disregard of the separation of powers, when you freeze assets and spending that by law have been already passed by an entity that has no legal position.
This makes it all a constitutional crisis. Something that easily could lead in the worst case to violence as just is just craving to show crush possible open opposition towards him perhaps with the insurrection act.
And now I think it's time for a conspiracy theory, in my view. Europeans have to wake up and understand that they are alone. Or then they have to bow to the Kremlin, because it's Putin who is calling all the shots when it comes to what Trump does in Europe.
Quoting Wayfarer
What makes this worse is just listen now to Canadians. Listen really to the speech the leaving Trudeau gave.
You see it's one thing if you have a "normal" trade war about or industry or service. Then the usual discourse is that on this area the other one is "cheating" on some specific issue. And that's what trade policy is for. But everything on a 25% tariff? Everything? And it's not only that: another thing is offending people by talking about them becoming a 51st state and then starting a trade war because no other reason than you want foreigners to put their industries into the US. That is extremely offending and condescending. And now Canadians feel it's outright hostile.
And that's really bad, because they won't care about if the economy now goes south, because it's Trump. And Trump's going after their sovereignty. That kicks up Canadians totally differently.
When Trump comes to the European Union and gets us to a trade war, I think the outcome can be that the US really leaves NATO. Because nobody will say to Trump that it is a bad thing I fear. Someone like JD Vance and Musk are too far with the idea that "one has to shake up old liberal Europe".
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, what can we say, it's an experience. Basically a huge transfer of money from some people to others.
When I graduated from school, I could enjoy for a few months enjoying a strong economy, when you could as a young guy right from the Gymnasium (High School equivalent) pick the job you wanted and go there. Then I went to serve my conscription and the economy collapsed in a banking crisis. I assumed first, well, the recession will be over when I come back from the army. Not so, the economic depression lasted for about five years.... and never basically came back. Not like as then, when everybody was hiring.
People were totally correct that this guy was waiting for four years just increasing his vindictiveness and grudges against everybody. Just look at his rant where he started to give the real reasons why he was so angry to Zelenskyi. On giving reasons why Russians broke cease-fires:
This above is the alarming part. He views as Putin having also to endure the "witch hunt". This idiot truly believes in Putin and thinks Putin is his friend. And then of course Hunter Biden's laptop scandal, which fell apart after Republicans star witness admitted that the story had been completely fabricated with help from top Russian officials. Zelenskyi then didn't do what Trump wanted, and Trump got impeached for the first time. So there's one personal reason for the grudge.
An entirely appropriate question.
Massive mobilization (spontaneous / organized) takes time, focus, and energy. Trump began his current maladministration only on 1/20/25--so about 45 days ago. His fast and furious demolition activities affect opponents the same way zebra stripes confuse lions: It's hard to lock on a target. It takes 10 times as much energy to resist the government as the government spends fucking us over.
"Elections have consequences!" Once in power, all sorts of advantages are acquired. This is true for Democrats and liberals as well as Republicans and reactionaries.
Trump is a hateful bastard surrounded by goons and morons and we can count on them making things progressively worse. We don't want "worse" but we are going to get it. We'd better not waste it. The opposition must capitalize on and fan the flames of discontent. The opposition must "get into every space" -- be it bars, union halls, churches, schools, neighborhood organizations, civic clubs, board rooms, congressional offices, the sidewalks surrounding the White House, the pentagon -- EVERYWHERE. Be polite as necessary, but not more so. Be as forceful as required, and not less so. Hammer the message home, again and again, about the very real damage Donald Trump et al are doing to the body politic and institutions of government.
Should the opposition take my sage advice, it won't produce results overnight. It needs to produce significant results by November 3, 2026 -- the next congressional election. And November 3, '26 is not the end game. Trump must not attempt to run for a third term and J. D. Vance must be tarred with the same brush as Trump. Maybe more tar and hotter. He's not as close to death as Donald.
There is, of course, no guarantee that anyone will take my sage advice. Perhaps the opposition will fold up, dig a hole, and bury itself in it. Perhaps Donald Trump will bring about full-fledged fascism. Bad things can and do happen to good people.
What is unclear about it?
Diffusion of responsibility. Everyone looks around at everyone else to see what they're doing, resulting in a gridlock where no-one does anything. I think author R.B. Cialdini describes the well-researched phenomenon as a case of communal stupidity, where our mechanism to use the knowledge and experience of others to make decisions locks up.
And just historically, it seems like a regime needs around 30% dedicated support to be able to grasp totalitarian powers. Around half the population will be too insecure or too shocked to act effectively at any given time, meaning that if you can mobilise a majority of the other 50%, you can seize power.
And which big tech uniting behind Trump and manipulating social media, it could actually require less support because social media would be an important tool to organise a resistance movement and spread information about it.
I'm honestly somewhat pessimistic about this. I have considered social media kind of a "suicide pact" technology for a while. Humans are not rational actors the vast majority of the time. Most of the stuff we do on any given day is directed by the "autopilot", a bunch of heuristics and response algorithms we acquired during our evolution. Many of these affect even conscious decisions without the people making the decision being aware of it.
By now, the workings of many of these mechanisms are decently well researched and are implemented in our online spaces to various degrees. This means that our "terminally online" populations are uniquely vulnerable to a concerted attack that either confuses them or convinces them to be complacent towards certain risks.
I bet 1 euro that it won't happen like that. The opposition to Elon Musk and Trump will rise. Perhaps Trump will then want to use the insurrection act, which will just draw more opposition like flowers and honey attracts bees. It will just give more vitalism to the cause. This is something that won't be limited to just angry town hall meetings.
The Trump recession is already here, it has started. His most stupid trade war will just reinforce the downturn. Trade wars before had some reasoning behind them, with Trump they don't. And Canada being said to be the 51st state isn't a laughing matter here, just like taking Greenland isn't either. It just shows the hubris of these ignorant Trump followers.
As I've said even before this all started, Elon Musk will be the most hated person in the US and around the World. And after him, it's going to be Trump. Yet this is absolutely devastating for Tesla. Tesla as a company is already getting the response for Elon's crazy actions. After all, who the fuck will buy a Tesla now as it's a political statement that you are for Elon?
And it's going to be worse. A lot worse.
The Trump cult will fight for it's revolution and live in it's alternate reality, where the economic and political damage that Trump (and Musk) have caused will likely be portrayed as the doings of the "Deep State", which is there to get Trump. And some will believe that idiotic line.
So don't think you won't be heard.
Thank you @Christoffer and @BC for the Q&A about opposition activism and messaging.
I hope you don't mind but it is relevant to my thread and have C&P'd part of it there.
'This Moment is Medieval'...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/974040
Cheers! :sparkle:
Also, thanks to @Wayfarer for starting this necessary and valuable discussion.
I've been reading along and admiring the in-depth commentary.
It has stimulated some excellent exchanges from a variety of perspectives. :fire:
I would add: Listen to what people are saying about their concerns and problems. Then, act to show you care and will support them, in real terms.
Grass roots intervention.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think there are protests but we are not seeing them. It's not just Washington he is affecting adversely, there is gross interference in European politics. By him and Vance stirring the hard-right pot.
And as ssu points out:
Quoting ssu
It's more than just a 'shake-up', more of a break-up but I'm going to leave it here. Will still follow...
No, it's not that it's unclear (although, I could wrangle it in that direction). It's that I think the 'view' described is erroneous to a rather extreme degree :) It was quippage, not argument.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the courts three liberal justices in the 5-4 order, which was the high courts first significant move on lawsuits related to President Donald Trumps initiatives in his second term.
...Soon after the ruling, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali ordered the government to develop a schedule for restarting the payments.
Aid groups had argued that the Trump administration was flouting Alis order to pay its bills and hailed the high courts decision as a sign that the president cannot ignore the law.[/quote]
(Gift Link)
The suspension of US Foreign Aid and U.S.A.I.D. has wrought havoc not only in developing nations, but also amongst many rural communities in the US which provide the primary production that is distributed through these channels. Read about the consequences.
It's baffling that the political right is cheering on Trump's destruction of the Federal public service. Many of the services being cut are essential for public welfare, not 'corrupt bureaucracies'. Trump and Musk seem motivated more by hatred of the Government than by an intention to actually improve it.
It is extreme to the point of provoking thought. I elaborated more in the second post, but imagine a scenario in which the US goes so far in the wrong direction that people has to do something about it. When is it time to think about such questions? Now, or in the chaos of such a situation? It would also be a point of provoking thought for the purpose of increasing the knowledge to prevent things from going in the wrong direction.
At the moment, Trump granting Musk entry and power within the government and letting him grant access to unauthorized personnel is considered breaking the law. That's the foundation of the lawsuits being drawn up. If Trump tries to block these lawsuit investigations, that will be a direct obstruction of the law. And with the track record of how things have been going, Trump seems much more inclined to go by force than anything else, threatening democrat officials if they try to object towards his policies.
When is the time to think about these things for real? Do you actually think nothing is happening at the moment?
There has been talk of moving some of the functions of DOE to other agencies. Project Management has not been a hallmark of the Administration so far. The thought so far seems to fire everybody who used to do X and dump it into the inboxes of people with no experience of the programs.
There is the plan to take Federal dough but change its vector:
Quoting AP
Here's an old comedy bit
Yes, a certain number of us quote freely from it at work.
The budget for the Department of Education was $268 B at the end of the Biden Administration. HERE IS A GRAPH of how the money was spent. $161B, the largest expenditure, is for Federal Student Aid. Elementary and secondary education gets $83B, and $21B goes for special education and rehabilitation services.
States and local governments, on the other hand, spend 756 billion on education in 2021. I do not know whether that is an over- or -under estimation.
One thing is certain: K-12 education is a vital function, but it is also a long-standing can of worms. What different segments of the American population want from K-12 education in the thousands of school districts varies a lot. A lot of money is spent by schools, but results tend to be disappointing for many parents.
My sense is that perhaps 10% to 20% of parents get the kind of education they want for their children: Children in the top 10% of income earning families tend to live in better environments where the benefits of good performance in school and higher education are not open to question. They tend to go to (usually public) schools where the ethos of education is more or less common property.
Children in progressively lower categories of income tend to do progressively worse. Of course there are some significant exceptions, but as a general trend, this seems to be the case.
If schools are not performing well, this probably isn't something the Department of Education can do much about.
There is some research that indicates 5 to 6 year old students who arrive in the first grade with significant deficits in pre-school development (all sorts of skills) are usually not able to successfully overcome the negative consequences of poor home environments in the years ahead, especially in verbal skills. This group is a minority of students one hopes, but it does seem to be getting larger.
Remediating the environments in which children are raised is difficult because it means changing the lives of parents, and that may just not be practically possible. It would take a Defense Department-sized federal department of fairy godmothers with magic wands to solve the problem.
Who or what are you quoting from? It is not in the graph page you posted.
I get the idea that supporting particular programs in very poor areas is not going to turn them into throbbing centers of opportunity, but they do help some people. The Project 2025 idea of States deciding who will be helped inclines me to cut out the money altogether. In for a penny, in for a pound of futility.
Edit to add: You were not quoting but speaking for yourself?
The address on which the graph is located is https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-do/agency/us-department-of-education/ The graph is located a ways down the page.
Quoting Paine
Speaking for my self, of course, but reflecting various pieces I've read. For instance Geoffrey Canada's program for young children in Harlem New York City shows both how language deficits affect performance in primary school, and how the deficits can be prevented IF intervention begins very early. Numerous reports show wealthier school districts performing better than poorer ones.
Understood about the importance of early education. My thinking is if the Federal dough is no longer going to be supporting that then what? All the "states rights" stuff is what?
"States Rights", to my mind, is all about any mandate from the Federal government -- SCOTUS, COTUS, OR POTUS that seems to correct inequity / discrimination / institutional disadvantage propagated by one group of more powerful citizens against less powerful citizens. States Rights was the shield raised against SCOTUS's Brown vs. The Board of Education which declared racial segregation in education unconstitutional.
Southern states are the natural home of states rights, but a liberal northern state might start thinking about states rights if a liberal northern ox is gored by the feds.
Maybe so.
More to the point:
You push costs down, push salaries down in order to maximize what you get out of the workers. You put pressure on your workers to give up on unionized rights, try to manipulate them into valuing the company as a "family" and how their complaints is a negative impact on fellow "family members".
That is the foundation for how CEOs and companies operate. The only thing standing in their way are regulations and union power.
And then you have society, which doesn't run on these metrics. It's the opposite really. The wealth of a nation isn't really counted in how much capital the top leaders have. It's within the pockets of its citizens. The more citizens who has filled pockets, the more they can spend in the economy. It's the people who drives the national economy. So in order to improve a nation, the best way is to not try and take advantage of "workers" because there's no profit in doing so. You can't "fire a citizen" that isn't complying, they will just become a burden on society if they don't participate. And it's not possible to just force them into participating and work, because if they don't have a sense of purpose in what they're doing, they will eventually not be able to participate, regardless of force upon them.
Essentially, it's like having a company in which you try to fire the workers who are bad for your profit, but they stay in the office and continues to consume resources in that office. And while they're doing that, you try to get their children to work for you, but they have to take care of the previous ones let go, so they're down on their knees and eventually also just become people who stay at the office consuming your resources.
This is why a nation cannot be run like a business. It doesn't operate at all like one and is rather dependent on thinking the opposite. To spend money on the people is to profit as a nation.
This means that the well-being of the citizens is at the heart of a healthy economy and national identity. Good health care, good social securities, good security from crime, good infrastructure, good funding of culture, taking care of the sick, weak and old etc.
Since all the workers at the office will always be in the office regardless of working or not, you, as a CEO, are forced to rather make sure that as many of them as possible are healthy and happy enough to want to work for you. The better the conditions for these people, the more likely they will participate and the less people are there just consuming resources.
I think that Reaganomics made people forget this truth about a nation. When people started viewing other people as a disposable workforce in all areas of life and not just the workplace, it influenced politics and pushed business owners into running the nation, trying to operate on the same principles as a company.
And when they faced the fact that the workers "couldn't leave the office", they have been trying to "solve" this problem using continuous strategies that may work for businesses, but not for a society.
Essentially, ignoring the needs to the people, cutting back on health care, on social securities and helping the people seems to be a way of trying to "ignore the problem" and letting them literally die off in order to get rid of them. That's the only way to "fire them" from the office.
These politicians are so indoctrinated into the way of how businesses operate that they are unable to understand how society prosper and becomes healthy. And they've entangled themselves so deep into a web of this thinking that everyone at the top keeps holding actual improvements to society back.
They simply aren't wise enough to be able to improve society for the people.
Musk, DOGE and Trump is just the latest tip of this spear and the most obvious signifier of this mentality. But it runs deep within all politicians in the US.
The only way to change this, is to change the fundamentals of the US, to focus on running society as a society and not as a business. Remove all of these idiots who try to operate society as such.
Or else, this way of running the nation will just deepen until the people have had enough. But since this mentality runs so deep, a revolution will probably just be a new run of the "Animal Farm", leading to new people operating under the same principles.
This is probably the underlying reason why the US doesn't operate like governments in the EU. Why the EU tends to install more regulations and why politics seem to be more stable and work far better. The EU nations generally don't view society as a company. Probably because of its long history with rising and falling empires, all constantly verifying what kinds of society that works and what doesn't. Letting society install guardrails to govern against those who would lead a nation in a direction historically proven to be destructive.
The US has always operated on transactions with other nations. Their entire existence is a rebellion against an empire, to be "free" to operate on business principles, and we're seeing the emergence of the end result of this mentality. The self-made nation. The CEO politics. So in a sense, Reaganomics just became a catalyst of a political journey that's been taking place since the civil war.
The US isn't an empire. It's a pseudo-business who doesn't understand that its actually a society. An office space with workers who may soon unionize a rebellion but lacking an actual philosophy of a true nation.
The US is pretty much doomed to fall as a nation eventually. Under its own weight of misunderstandings of what a nation and society actually is and what it needs.
In other words, Vote Democrat.
Temporary band-aid - It's not a solution. It's just putting the feet on the breaks into a stand-still for a moment only to continue down this path later.
This is a fundamental problem within the very essence of US culture.
Trump and his kin isn't a one-off. We've seen a constant escalation of his type creeping its way into the top. And democrats seem to be totally oblivious to the problems in society popping up under their terms.
You can't just put hope into democrats, they will probably win the next term, put the nation into some pause while these idiots now in power return in force again after that.
It's a downward spiral, two steps back - one step forward. There's no solution in the status quo of the side who wins on doing essentially nothing.
If democrats keep dancing around their liberal centrism, they're part of perpetuating the status quo.
The Nazis called them "useless eaters".
Thinking of a nation as a business is as wrong as thinking of a business as a family. The scales are totally unmatched; the purposes are disparate; and only families are natural -- man + woman = children.
Quoting Christoffer
Absolutely!
Quoting Christoffer
Politicians actually have been able to improve society for the people on numerous occasions. Examples: Social security law; auto safety laws; civil rights laws. So have cement workers, civil engineers, farmers, agronomists, weather forecasters, people who dance in the chorus line, professors, elementary school teachers, et al.
Quoting Christoffer
Well, Christoffer, in the fullness of time all nations are doomed; everyone is going to die, much sooner than they imagined, quite often. Ultimately, in the very long run, all our efforts are futile. What we do, how we do it, to whom, and why DOES MATTER a great deal in the short run--this year, this decade, this century.
One of the lessons of history is that things go haywire much of the time. But people carry on. They get things done, bring the crops in, cook meals, make clothing, keep society humming along.
The delight taken in their trouble will be remembered.
Above all, a nation state isn't just a service. It simply isn't similar to going to the market and buying stuff or a service. True patriotism, love of your country, is one of those few ideas and values that a poor man and a rich man can share. It creates a lot that isn't transactional.
In the US, I'd naturally hope a centrist democrat would take over the Democratic party and kick the elderly out of the ruling positions. Or conservatives would take back the Republican party from the MAGA Church after the American Nero has burnt Rome.
But heck, I'm just a puny foreigner. Hence the likely counter movement against Trump's MAGA Church and the oligarchy will come from the left. And as @Paine said, one likely person might be Bernie.
Perhaps Bernie should try get Trump and the MAGA-talking heads to get raving mad. And what better way to do it is to be openly declaring what he is, a [s]social democrat[/s], sorry, a democratic socialist. There's nothing to being a social democrat. Keir Starmer, Tony Blair, Miterrand, all basically are social democrats. But in the US media discourse, that's something that makes Republicans and likely the MAGA media to see red and be really, really angry. The political pundits would laugh at it. Not in the US, the GOP can eat them for breakfast. Yet I think it's important to do something that gets things up from the malaise that the democrat party is now in. Hillary stating that Trump supporters were "deplorables" was the highest moment for MAGA, because that kind of condescending attitude energizes a political movement. Especially made up of from people that think they have not been heard, that the system isn't working for them. Yet simply going against the oligarchs and the corruption would be the way here forward and then to talk how badly things are going.
Move to the right creates a countermove to the left. And someone like Bernie Sanders would still be in the "normal" range of politics. Bernie isn't a Hugo Chavez. The worst possible outcome after Trump would be a leftist populist like Chavez who wouldn't value democracy, actually. Populist are always bad, because they start from the juxtaposition of them being for the people and others being the enemy of the people. Not actually a position that is healthy for a democracy.
The Bernie move needs to be seen in the context of the GOP being afraid to talk to the electorate that put them in office. The actions being taken by the present administration are so detrimental to the well-being of citizens that people want to talk about it. It does not mean that these people will suddenly want a form of polity that Sanders has championed during his career.
Other politicians are thinking of holding similar events. I hope they don't get too promotional.
Bernie could easily go to talk to the MAGA crowd. The rednecks, the hicks, and so on in the fly-over country where they have voted for Trump.
He has done it before. I don't understand your observation as a counter to mine.
How old was Bernie?
My proposal is that listening to people is powerful. Sanders will not be running for President again. Everybody knows that.
Let me put the matter in a different register. The Agricultural Industry voted for Trump by a large margin. They are and will be receiving direct damage from the new policies. They backed a player who does not even understand their situation. Realizing that is more important than advancing any policy.
Musk examines how to oust Starmer as UK prime minister before next election
[sup] Anna Gross, Joe Miller, Lucy Fisher · Financial Times · Jan 9, 2025[/sup]
Yet, kind of telling. Seems like Musk's efforts haven't paid off.
On another note, in late Feb, Macron and Starmer gently corrected Trump in public on separate occasions. I guess no one really cares any longer.
83 -- not that old if you are still in good shape which Bernie seems to be.
At least he is articulately and energetically criticizing Trusk, the corrosive duo--something that few Democrats and no Republicans are doing.
Taking a page from the IWW: Now is the time to fan the flames of discontent!
Elon's fortune is of this ilk.
Yep. Trump is continuing to pour fuel on the flames, so the task ought to be easy.
Quoting BannoBasically the is Tesla stock would fall -50% from today, when it has already fallen -50% from it's high (meaning a -75% fall in total), it still would be high priced. Other car manufacturers aren't facing this kind of negativity.
Perhaps Elon should cut it loose and just have SpaceX and government contracts.
The second Tesla was a SUV model and it measured up to expectations. The driver told me that the self-driving feature cost $5000+, on top of $65,000 for the vehicle. He didn't have it.
Tesla #3 was the sedan with the glass roof. The driver hadn't been through a winter with it, so he didn't know how the glass roof would be in the winter--cold, snow, ice... In terms of crash-safety, I felt as exposed as I would in a convertible, layered safety glass or not. Tesla sells optional sun-shades, because sun + glass roof = heat, so what's the point?
The Chevy [s]Volt[/s] Bolt is about as nice as a Tesla and much cheaper (rode in one once). The range of the Bolt battery is rated at 260 miles (418k), so it is best used in an urban setting where total daily driving distances are relatively low. A trip from Minneapolis to Chicago (400+ miles) might require two recharge stops.
I don't drive, but in my never too humble opinion, Tesla isn't worth the cost. But then, in light of global heating, what car is worth that cost?
Compare Mercedes...
I am by nature apolitical. So, I observe current events in government as-if a back & forth football game, in which I have no allegiance to either side.
Yet, it recently occurred to me that Trump is trying to return the federal US administration to its Spartan form under William McKinley. Until the Great Depression, and four terms of Franklin Roosevelt, the federal government was mostly limited to representing the federated states to the outside world, including military operations. So it had little to do with the average citizen, and no budget for social programs. That was left to churches and the individual states. Billionaire oligarchs & magnates seem to view themselves as basically self-sufficient independent entities (including tax evasion), so they can be expected to support a McKinley-type administration politically, if not financially.
Since FDR used back-channel federal powers to provide financial aid to individual citizens, and to prop-up failing banks, we have become addicted to a social-support system at the top. But spending federal money on common people instead of military was never intended by the Constitutional conventions, attended mostly by the 2% aristocracy. It was an emergency adaptation that became a feature of liberal government.
Those emergency powers were popular with the masses of common people, so unconstitutional programs like Social Security are almost impossible to terminate long after the emergency has been survived. And they were financially feasible only as long as the US was the top colonial super-power in the world. But now that the US is a debtor nation, the social services are being paid for with borrowed money.
Therefore, although I benefit from social security, I am appalled at Trumpsk heavy-handed axing. Yet, I must admit that something must be done to keep the nation solvent. And perhaps only an elected dictator, and an un-elected henchman, could be expected to mandate such an overhaul of federal finances. FDR's dictatorial policies were allowed only because even the oligarchs could see the hand-writing on the wall, foretelling the total failure of empire unless some "hero" could be found to do what was necessary. Do you see any other route to federal solvency? :smile:
William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. ___Wikipedia
But it also needs to be made clear that Trump has no intention of balancing the budget. Yes, Trump-Musk will take the chainsaw to many government programs and agencies, but his tax cuts are so deep that they will more than offset any savings. The inexorable trend under the plutocracy will be dismantling welfare programs AND reducing taxes. It's plain who will benefit from that.
Meanwhile:
[quote=Judge finds Elon Musk and DOGE's shutdown of USAID likely unconstitutional;https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-finds-doges-usaid-shutdown-likely-unconstitutional/ ] A federal judge on Tuesday found that Elon Musk and the White House's Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution when they unilaterally acted to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of a group of more than two dozen unnamed current and former USAID employees and contractors who had challenged the efforts to shutter USAID, which were mounted by DOGE and Musk, a senior White House adviser who President Trump has said is the leader of the task force.
Chuang granted in part their request for a preliminary injunction and said in a 68-page decision that DOGE and Musk likely violated the Constitution's Appointments Clause and separation of powers.
He ordered Musk and task force employees to reinstate access to email, payment and other electronic systems to all current USAID employees and personal services contractors. The judge also prevented DOGE and Musk from taking any action relating to the shutdown of USAID, including placing employees on administrative leave, firing USAID workers, closing its buildings, bureaus or offices, and deleting the contents of its websites or collections.[/quote]
A related judgement says that many DOGE firings were illegal:
[quote=Trump Suffers Huge Loss as Judge Overturns Unlawful Mass Firings; https://newrepublic.com/post/192719/donald-trump-doge-judge-overturns-mass-firings]A federal judge ruled Thursday that the mass firing of federal employees was an unlawful directive by the Office of Personnel Management.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered several agencies to immediately reinstate all fired probationary employees. Those agencies included the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as the Departments of Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, and Agriculture. That would also restore numbers at the Internal Revenue Service, which falls under the helm of the Treasury Department and has been hit hard by job cuts in recent weeks.
In a hearing leading up to the decision, Alsup torched the Trump administrations decision not to submit OPM director Chad Ezell for questioning as a sham, and accused the White Houses effort to cast the firings as performance failures as a gimmick.
It is sad, a sad day, when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well thats a lie, Alsup said, according to Politicos Kyle Cheney.
The Trump administration has fired at least 30,000 employees with the help of Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE has made a point to target probationary employees still within the first year of their roles. Some of those employees have been called to return, but most are still not working, reported Axios.[/quote]
Trump's attitude is, any judge who challenges his executive decrees are troublemakers and radical left lunatics. The judicial challenges to the deportation of Venezualen gang members under a little-used piece of wartime legislation looks like being the litmus test case where it Trump might choose to ignore judicial rulings.
Second-hand Teslas are quite affordable and often come with off-sets, making a business purchase quite viable. The rest of that sounds a whinge.
You may be right. But national & international economics are over my little pointy head-in-sand. Yet, I don't despair, because for every bull-in-the-china-shop, there may be someone with a red cape to guide the bull away from the fragile stuff. We can hope that there are a few of the 2%, or the fourth estate, who have enough common sense to see where tariffs & tax cuts & deportations are going, and the clout to take Trumpsk by the horns. In my fantasy of history, there have always been "heroes" on both sides of the political aisle, who practice Aristotelian moderation instead of political house-cleaning and populist swamp-draining.
The current worldwide rightward trend --- perhaps even in OZ --- may lead to a disaster like Hitler, but somehow the world will find a way to keep-on keeping-on, zig-zagging from left to right and back. Remember the grandeur-that-was-Rome? The path of history, when seen in retrospect, cycles between extremes, yet on average it seems to be on a moderate track, with few points of total anarchy. Even so, like a tornado that fortunately misses my house, Trumpnado may leave a wake of destruction behind. But, don't look to me to quell the storm. :cool:
The difference is we are now overpopulated and are outstripping resources. We have gone over the hump of the bacterial growth curve. The next time we have civilisation collapse, it will be global and we will leave behind us a polluted planet.
People may say that, but they don't understand it. The part that there will be destruction around, even if it's not your house that was shredded into pieces.
What Trump is doing goes way over people's heads and thus they don't understand what is happening as it's happening so fast. The US is cutting it's allies loose, surrendering to it's adversaries and basically going against everything it stood for the past 80 years. And domestically it's dismantling it's institutions and becoming more of tumultuous and wavering Latin American state.
Yet listening to the democrat octogenarian James Carville defending Chuck Schumer (74 years) and talking about a smart withdrawal, I think especially these old Washington circle jerks do not understand what is happening. They think this is American politics as usual. It's not.
I've said that Musk will be the most hated guy in the US for a long time. And likely he might stay for six months and then has to retire to look after his collapsed businesses (that likely will be saved by the Trump government).
Yet the project is clear: Elon brakes everything, does the "savings", then afterwards Republicans can just say it has already been done, that it wasn't them.
Actually comes to mind how politicians in Europe blame always the EU and Brussels for every painful decision they make. With the exception that the EU doesn't demolish the institutions of government like a madman.
Well, if it is as you say, the changes of present polity will have no effect upon some greater economy that will emerge in the future,
Why are you so confident that the past will continue into the future?
We go through these changes. We're in a stable enough civilisation. I don't see any reason to think it wont. Reagan was probably thought of this way. As would have Lincoln been in his time. As will future Presidents. I cannot see that this is in any way that matters, a special case. Call me ignorant if you want (not you, personally) - I don't think so after quite careful, and long-term (what, nine years now?) consideration. That term includes the evidence for what I'm saying. If Biden's term wasn't the same type of threat, then this isn't one.
Hmm....
The Corona pandemic killed about 1,2 million people in the United States alone. In the World roughly seven million.
Now we had a thread about that here... still do. Let's just look at the Opening Paragraph (OP) and the first reply from page 1:
Quoting Punshhh
Quoting Tzeentch
Yeah, so do you think @AmadeusD that the pandemic was something you would put into that category of "no disaster... Wonder how we will deal with that."
Because naturally at hindsight everything will look OK. My grandparents lived through a civil war and World War 2 and survived, so naturally my life has been just dancing on roses compared to that.
My answer to the direct question is "no". But this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the position of mine you've quoted to reply to. Quite weird.
But yeah, life isn't much different to 2019 except prices and a bigger political division. But they were inevitable, temporary consequences to the types of policy changes that happened. We've reset. I think some miss this, and that's why there's such division still. We don't need to argue about masks, so we find other shit like cybertrucks.
As far as the death toll goes, it wasn't anything special - on the level of a serious flu. Countries went into full blown hysteria imposing measures, which, according to reports by Dutch health agencies themselves, likely cost more lives than they saved.
The economic fallout is much more damaging than the death toll. Although its difficult to see because there is other economic turmoil going on at the same time.
Here in the U.K. 500,000 people have disappeared from the workforce as a result of the pandemic. Ive heard there is a similar, though less acute trend across Europe. For a couple of years people couldnt believe it, what are these people doing? they thought. On examination it turned out there were many people nearing retirement age, some more than 10yrs from retirement who realised they enjoyed the simple peaceful life of lockdown. They realised that they had been working like wage slaves, like they were stuck in a rut, workaholics. Alongside them, there are 100s of thousands of people with long Covid, who struggle to work, or are now on incapacity benefits. People are unable to work because of long delays in hospital treatment due to hospitals struggling with the pandemic. There are landlords of office blocks going bankrupt because so many people work from home now that the offices are empty.
The knock on effects on global trade are still affecting supply and inflation of resources. The increases of the cost of living for the poor around the world are pushing many people who were just about managing over the edge into poverty. The elites and oligarchs are looking to hide more of their wealth and extract as much as they can out of economies before there is another hit to the global economy from somewhere. This is one of the reasons why oligarchs are buying up and funding news and social media outlets to spread populist lies and turn states authoritarian. A kleptocracy enables them to rip off sections of societies and to divide and rule. The ensuing chaos makes it easier to hide their wealth offshore. Countries are looking to devour other countries to keep monsters in authoritarian rule etc etc.
That was a case example of how that was tried to be controlled, by those that had ties to it.
Quoting Tzeentch
No, it was one of the large pandemics and historically a notable pandemic. You yourself said that flus kill 60 000-70 000 a year, which is actually on the high side. Something hundred times deadlier is a notable event.
And of course, the AIDS has been a larger killer, but it has lasted for far longer.
Quoting Punshhh
Here the cause effects in history makes history not so clear. The inflation spurt was basically caused by the actions to avoid the "natural" recession when people are forced to stay at home. But these events then blend in to others. Another issue is also the 2008/2009 Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, which basically too has still fundamental effects still to this day.
This makes us very difficult to see what is happening. Some things are just events of the day, some are events taking many years to develop. Only with historical perspective the historians can have an agreement on what were the notable events as something "notable" is something that explains future development.
It was a notable event, but Covid's deadliness was on par with a serious flu, and our reaction to it was one of complete hysteria which cost more lives than it saved.
The Dutch health authority estimated that the Dutch measures taken against Covid had saved, if I remember correctly some 150,000 QALY's while costing upwards of 350,000 QALY's.
Some countries had it better. (But this is for the Coronavirus thread that still goes on.)
Our civil service is being dismantled on a level that the means of transferring skills and knowledge from one generation to the next is under attack (who knows if ultimately successful).
The Reagan years did put those services under stress but did not attempt to disappear them, as such, outside of Congress, who was assigned the job of designing Government by the Constitution.
That said, no, this will not prevent skills and knowledge being handed on to further generations. That doesn't even strike me as a possible outcome. Could you explain?
There are two vectors.
The push to have experienced people leave as soon as possible.
The reduction of "probationary" employees who are typically the ones who do the work after their teachers leave.
Sure - many of those who have been selected for immediate dismissal across all these Departments were probationary employees with a year or less on the job. Meaning that they were the people being trained to take the reins when older employees retired. And their ranks have been decimated. The IRS is a particularly egregious example, considering how much Republicans kvetch about debt and deficit. You'd think they would give priority to an effective tax department, but no.
You seem to be challenging others to prove to you that Musk and Trump are doing enormous damage to the fabric of federal public services. If you read the media coverage, it is abundantly obvious what is happening. I'm not going to waste time trying to explain it further.
Are you sure this is what's happening? I don't really see it. I can see it as a (foreseeable, and dismal) side effect. That said, I'm unsure this would achieve the situation you're claiming either. Movement happens all the time, in and out of countries and classes etc... So, I'm just not quite seeing what's so special here i guess.
Quoting Paine
I might need a clarification of what you're pointing to. What's the 'reduction' in issue here?
Quoting Wayfarer
Right. A huge amount of assumption goes into getting from this (which, arguably, isn't a massive problem - that's a far different conversation to this one though) to the conclusion that there's going to be some horrorful gap in knowledge upcoming. That said, I'm not coming down on any side. I'm asking for views and for people to defend theirs. If that's an issue, I don't take you seriously. I'm sure that's reasonable to you, also.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Wayfarer
Oh, nevermind. Loud and clear.
Yes, from the reports from my friends and family, many of whom are public servants, inside and outside of the government per se.
Don't you live in New Zealand?
Totally agree and applaud your whole post here. Although there is no dictator in this picture, nothing that has been done by the executive has been unconstitutional or against the "republic" despite the best efforts of the media machine and the TDS folks will have you believe. I think you have correctly characterized the overall picture and put it in a decent historical perspective. In the same way FDR did what was necessary at the time, Trump/Musk are making a necessary correction. Whether they are going to far or not far enough remains to be seen and history will judge. People posting in here seem to be so certain of the results of the reduction in government based on what? Media reporting? Anecdotal reactions from federal workers? I would rather wait and see. Buggy whip makers were terrified when cars became the norm. Federal workers who largely or in general "do not work as hard" as private sector workers are terrified they may have to work and justify their paychecks without a guaranteed job no matter what their performance is. Of course there are exceptions but they are very few.
Yes, I am speaking with the perspective of an extensive 25 years of experience in an environment of both federal workers and federal contractors. Even the contractors get away with being less productive then strictly private sector workers. They just don't have the absolute security and job guarantee that the actual govey has had up until now. The intense resistance by the federal bureaucracy to these changes is completely predictable. It's up to the whole society to decide how much government is reasonable, but one thing is certain whether we need more or less government, that is the federal worker should not be entrusted to police and regulate themselves. They shouldn't be allowed to vote themselves raises, to give themselves a separate and premium healthcare system that private citizens don't get, they shouldn't be immune from being terminated due to non performance. They shouldn't be allowed the boondoggles they regularly gone on without regard for cost as it's not their money they spend.
All of that is currently true and has lead to a government bloat that will destroy us if not dramatically reformed.
This paragraph is not meant for you but for all the posters who pretend to know what Musk's motives are. I see other posters claiming that this is all being done to benefit the 2 men in question. Other than making them feel as if they have made a difference of historical significance what benefit do they get? Money? Seriously dumb notion that the richest man in the world is doing what he is doing, subjecting himself to such rhetorical abuse, donating time and a portion of his fortune so he can make more money. That really is just one of the dumbest things I've seen in this thread. He has more money than most human beings can even contemplate. He can literally do anything that can be done materially. He can literally buy any experience and any kind of lifestyle that can be bought and yet he chooses to participate in fixing the way this country runs. Now disagree with his communication style or his methods but please stop pontificating on his motives which you can't possibly know.
.
Quoting Maw
Yep. What's the relevance? (fwiw, I hate it here LOL. Seems about as relevant).
In case you're going to make some argument about how my not living hte USA precludes me from commenting, or caring about hte US state of affairs (or having an accurate view of it) miss me. Cannot deal with such stupidity. If it's not, that's fine, and ignore this. It is a very common response I'd prefer to get ahead of is all.
Yesterday I was at an intersection and I saw a hand written sign that said, "It says of the people, by the people, for the people."
I thought to myself, hey, somebody gets it.
I thought you were asking me how I knew, not what might convince others.
Quoting AmadeusD
The observation that a generational crisis is at hand comes from a life of work. When an outfit fires the Old Salts and the Rookies at the same time, the game is over. There is no way to reproduce the enterprise.
Are you disagreeing with the statement that institutional collapse is eminent or saying that such an event will not change the course of future polity?
This is certainly worth stating. The assumption that cupidity is the sole motivator seems banal. Such a conclusion involves a degree of mind reading or, at the very least, constructing a narrative from selective inferences. There is always the possibility that those whose approach and values we detest are acting sincerely, believing they are doing what is best. Someone like Musk likely thrives on problem-solving and the pursuit of significance. Vainglory is surely a far greater driving force for such a personality than money. One might have deep concerns about a person so consumed by ideology and the desire for status. I suspect the key to understanding all this is in how the change is managed and what its impacts are and how much Musk cares.
Indeed. I think its about power. And ideology.
Just wanted to point out how your (over 6K mile) physical removal from the United States coincides with your casually abstract - to the point of callousness - comments, which are equally removed from the devastating day-to-day realities that people are suffering through, thanks to the direction of this administration.
I don't see Musk as acting purely for personal gain or benefit. He has complex motivations, one of which is his often-stated aim of colonizing Mars. Aside from being the legendary 'world's richest man', he also has many business interests, and indeed, were it not for his obnoxious right-wing ideology, I would have found much to admire about him. But this DOGE campaign he is running is completely outside the bounds of constitutional oversight and political convention. The abrubt termination of the greater part of US foreign aid is endangering lives all over the developing world. Many of DOGE's actions on the domestic front have been slipshod and palpably cruel. Thousands of workers have been summarily dismissed by form emails, often with virtually zero notice. This included, it turned out, some highly skilled workers at the nuclear oversight commission, who all had to be hired back. DOGE has made no secret of the fact that federal workers who are known to support Democrats or are Democrat party members will be fired on grounds of insufficient loyalty to Trump. (One of the rationales for the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D was that it was a largely Democrat-leaning organisation.) Musk and DOGE have also amplified and repeated baseless lies in support of their activities.
So, no, I don't Musk is in it for the money. I think he's intoxicated with power, with the ability to bend the entire Government of the US to his will, and to ruthlessly manifest whatever strange vision he has for the kind of society the US is to become.
As for Trump, there's a separate thread for that.
Where do you get this from? What does constitutional oversight mean? I think you mean to say congressional oversight as the constitution is a document. The executive(Trump) has the authority to what he is doing and he can ask someone to look into and make recommendations to him. Then congress can challenge constitutionality through the courts. Nothing remarkable or unusual about any of this aside from the way the bureaucracy is portraying it. The courts are stepping in all over the place so apparently it's NOT outside oversight from the judicial branch so your "completely outside constitutional oversight" statement is COMPLETELY false. Especially if all these people were fired and had to be rehired as you say.
It may be outside of political convention but that's precisely what people want, political convention has gotten us here. Political convention means the end justifies the means, lobbyist hold sway, lying and hypocrisy are virtues and so on, so I'm glad it's outside of political convention. Certainly nothing illegal or unconstitutional about going against political convention. Musk's right wing ideology is something he recently grew into. He was a hero of the left right up until he chose to think for himself and observe the censorship and complete ineptitude of the administration in power which was largely the liberal democrat bureaucracy. He's still doing the same kinds of things he did prior to his enlightenment but now it gets labelled as "right wing" ideology instead of just common sense so he's evil and his eco-friendly electric cars should be trashed, even though they are predominantly owned by democrats. I mean the left is this country is just brilliant aren't they? You are also getting your news from the echo chamber which you live in. You believe in the bureaucracy and everything it tells you.
The bottom line running through all of these arguments between right and left is: do you believe that a large government directing and taking care of every aspect of your life is the way to go or do you believe in a limited government that's there for essential protections only and people should be as free as possible without allowing exploitation and abuse of that freedom. Anyone who knows anything about history and the nature of all powerful organizations knows that they feed on themselves and will ultimately become corrupt. The founders of our republic knew this well so they built a system to try and minimize the chances for corruption. Since FDR we have been heading down this road of more and more and more government. A liberal European type social democracy here will end up being a disaster for the entire world. So the pendulum has swung back and everyone should relax, we will be fine with less government. It's not perfect, it's messy, but it's better than being Europe-West.
Quoting Wayfarer
He is acting as an advisor to Trump. Both men appear to be more interested in allowing private innovation and meritocracy to be the guiding principles to maintaining a strong and viable country. Your statement here is so over the top and hyperbolic. He was ask to help trim the fat and get rid of the corruption and abuse of the how the taxpayer's money is spent by RECOMMENDING cuts and the bureaucracy predictably doesn't like it and is fighting for it's life using every trick it knows which historically is to lie, exaggerate, propagandize, falsely accuse and falsely characterize every single action as evil. Trump or his agency heads sign the orders to cut where DOGE recommends.
Lastly colonizing Mars is a next logical step in our development and is critical to the long term survival of human kind. That's simply a scientific fact. I doubt his DOGE activities have anything to do with those plans other than to say he wants the US to survive and continue to be the "Free Beacon" on the hill long enough to realize that next step. People around the entire earth want to come here to escape oppressive governments. Why are people here so hell bent on recreating those oppressive governments here? Liberal socialist ideologies fail every single time they have been tried but yet people still push it here.
I'm not going to do your homework. Trump has zero interest in balancing the budget, by all projections the national debt will balloon under his proposals. I'm not going to respond point by point, other than to say that I think the Trump Presidency is an absolute disaster for both America and the world, and that Trump and Musk between them are doing terrible damage to fabric of society. If that's 'hyperbolic' then so be it.
:100: :up:
For a philosophical perspective, the Feb/Mar 2025 issue of Philosophy Now magazine asks "was Machiavelli so bad?" The editorial discusses Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politika. The editor says Politika was the "first scientific study of different forms of government". Then notes that "each type has a 'true form' and 'deviant form'. Here are Aristotle's six forms of government : Monarchy (king) & Tyranny (despot) ; Aristocracy (nobility) & Oligarchy (2% wealthy) ; Polity (oligarchy+democracy) and Democracy (100% representation). At this time, we seem to be precariously balanced on the knife-edge of a Polity. I'll let you decide which is "good/true" and which "bad/deviant" for any particular time & place.
Referring back to Machiavelli, the editor says "For a politician, he says 'good' doesn't mean being nice, but doing what needs to be done, even if it's treacherous, violent or cruel.". The editorial doesn't specifically mention Trump/Musk, but I assume that Trumpsk may agree with Machiavelli's pragmatic advice to a Prince with an unruly populace. "Thinkers such as Spinoza and Rousseau have therefore read The Prince as a warning to all of us, so we learn how politicians think and how we may protect our liberty".
The US government has always been a compromise between the efficiency of an autocrat (allied with noble senators) and the stability of a democrat (with plebian house of commons). Since Trump has been elected temporary King, we now seem to be in a Polity with a feckless Congress. But, since I have no money or property to worry about, I'm content to wait & see what this overhaul of "Liberal" government will do for the often polarized polity. Will we endure another Great Depression or a Civil War? Or will we just muddle through as usual? :smile:
The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
Not sure I agree with every characterization here but once again a very reasonable and interesting post, I commend you on your thoughtfulness. I'll have to read some of the referenced material here. Quite different from another poster who likes to quote unnamed or biased sources as well as use several logical fallacies sometimes in the same post.
I suggest you look a little closer at this so-called enlightenment.
--- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/09/elon-musks-journey-from-humanitarian-to-poster-of-rightwing-memes
Quoting philosch
I can only take this as a joke. Then again, the things which pass as "scientific fact" to some these days, never ceases to amaze me. Since Mr. Musk sems to believe that AI is the biggest threat to human kind, I suppose that the opportunity of a colony on Mars where AI is fully outlawed, is the basis of this "scientific fact".
Obviously, the characterizations of Autocrat (King ; Prince ; President) and Democrat (rule by committee) are over-simplifications of complex issues that I am not qualified to discuss. But the founders of the US Constitution tried to offset the negative aspects of single-minded Autocrat and indecisive Democrat, by forcing them to work together. :smile:
Making trains run on time :
IT IS A myth that, whatever his faults, Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, made the trains run on time. He didn't. If even a man with dictatorial powers cannot enforce a railway timetable, what hope is there in a messy democracy?
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/11/03/making-trains-run-on-time
from: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/979646 and a longer Guardian quote:
Each person is responsible for his or her own behavior.
A good topic for an essay.
THE MATERIAL CREATION OF FREEDOM suggests that Free Markets are the key to free Democracy. And it seems that Trump's tariffs are top-down interference with the "invisible hand" of the market. Which, the article implies, is how kings have traditionally attempted to control the flow of money in their societies. The author says that in 459BC Pericles was a military general, who wanted to take control of Egyptian grain, which was essential to the Greek economy. But when his top-down takeover failed, he changed course and adopted free-market policies that not only allowed more freedom for citizens of Athens, but led to their Golden Age. A modern example of the same principle is the thriving economy and civil freedom of democratic South Korea compared to the top-down autocracy of regimented North Korea.
Historically, "the transition from autocracy to democracy is often bloody. It took the British two centuries to restrain their royalty and unleash their industry". The increased cash flow of the industrial revolution was "welcomed by the government, mostly aristocrats who were eager to tax the wealth that resulted." And much of that "tax" was in the form of tariffs on trade that limit bargaining freedom. So, the tariff tactic is not surprising, considering that Trump imagines himself as a successful businessman, when in fact his talent is in selling his own artificially-cultivated "image & likeness", not in the reciprocal give & take of "the art of the deal" between equal partners. Trump portrays himself as a Napoleon, but may be more like the "little rocket man" running Korea.
The author says "political leaders who do not understand the engine of production and trade that drives the creation of of a democratic mindset imagine that democracy can be imposed upon people". So, it's likely that the Trumpsk administration will become even more autocratic, if the US and world financial system descends into depression, in an attempt to "impose" free trade on a moribund economy. :smile:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10884476/#:~:text=The%20colonization%20of%20Mars%20could,collapse%2C%20or%20other%20unforeseeable%20threats.
https://philarchive.org/rec/MALWCM
The reasoning in these papers is sound. Long term survival based on the probability of world ending catastrophes becomes a relative point. I'll rephrase it to say that MARS self sustaining colonization would be one guarantee against a few inevitable world ending scenario's that will eventually occur and that is a fact based on a probability near 100%.
As for the rest of your quote in regards to Musk you once again rely on that bastion of unbiased and objective reporting..."The Guardian"....enough said. You once again speak from your echo chamber.
It's significant that the only contributions you're calling out are Gnomon's which have neither any reference to or connection with what is actually happening but are waffling about political philosophy. And that NIH paper is about colonizing Mars while the real issue confronting the NIH at this moment, is the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of grants on ideological or political grounds.
That is from Nature, hardly a left-wing socialist outlet. Meanwhile RFKjr is insisting that research money be wasted on further exploration of the long-discredited link between vaccination and autism.
Alongside this, the Trump administration has launched a full-on ideological war against academic freedom, under the guise of cracking down on 'anti-American' and 'DEI-focussed' speech.
As for 'the media bubble': The Guardian has what Americans call 'liberal bias'. So what? I can easily make the distinction between their editorial slant, and the facts they report. So too with the other 'liberal media' - NY Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic. They stand up for liberal values, no question, but they're also capable of balanced writing and reporting, and they do attempt to report the facts.
And one fact everyone needs to acknowledge is that the Trump administration is built on lies. Trump is the one who insists that the 2020 election was 'rigged' even after 60 lawsuits brought against it were basically laughed out of court. Trump is the one who summarily pardoned 1500 odd felons who had among other things beaten police unconscious with fire extinguishers and flag poles.
Trump is on the record saying that Jan 6th 2021 was a 'day of love'.
It needs to be realised that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are direct threats to constitutional democracy and the rule of law. This is a fact, it is not scare-mongering or 'liberal propaganda' - there are more than 50 current lawsuits brought against Trump's executive actions. Trump is routinely reported as propagating 'disinformation' or 'making claims without evidence', but in plain language, he lies - repeatedly and prolifically, nearly every time he speaks. His administration and those he sorrounds himself with are dripping with mendacity. And that's not a matter of opinion.
OMG and you had the nerve to make fun of what I considered a fact. Everything you have said here is a matter of opinion. Them being a threat to democracy is exactly liberal propaganda and fear mongering. Just like I said, accuse the other side of what you are doing and what you are, is right out of Alinsky's playbook, you're a good liberal foil. I've never heard more lies than what has been spewed by the democratic party and liberal mainstream media in the last 10 yrs. Of course there are lies told in politics, Trump certainly prevaricates as do all politicians, but to pretend your 50 lawsuits are nothing more than the bureaucracy trying hold the tide against what the majority want is really silly. Your comment says it all. I shall agree to adamantly disagree. What you have said above is ridiculous propagandizing and not worth any further discussion.
I feel the same about what you're saying, but in this matter there are not two sides to the story. That Trump lies repeatedly and is a threat to democracy is not a matter of opinion, but of fact. You've stated your view, others can make up their own mind.
Although I do have one question: what is your view of the Jan 6th riot? Do you think that was justified? That it's been exagerrated by 'the liberal media'? That it was really a peaceful demonstration?
How do you know what the "majority" wants?
Based on what you've said here, a sound practice.
There's no doubt about the abundant dis/mal/misinformation.
Reporting on False or misleading statements by Donald Trump 4-5 years ago, which might already have been a record back then:
Reporter to Trump: 'Do you regret all the lying to Americans?'
[sup] Shirish V Dáte, Brianna Keilar · CNN/youtube · Aug 14, 2020 · 4m:14s[/sup]
[sub](apologies in advance if the CNN youtube goes against the rules, it's direct and relevant, though)[/sub]
When speaking with Trump followers, I found that some say "He's just trolling, you have to read him right", some dodge/divert or refuse to comment or turn my inquiry into a semantics game, some dismisses with a "They all lie" handwave (and fail to address the amount), some double down (into Alice's proverbial rabbit hole), ... I suppose Trump is free to lie, it's not illegal; it becomes a problem when lots of people (always) trust his word more than "mainstream media" or whatever. How to characterize this aspect of those people? Puzzling that it continues.
[sup]A standard phrase of his for years[/sup]
It truly is an alternative reality. Some of the apologists for Trump on the Forum seem quite earnest, and pained as to why critics (like myself) are so hostile. I guess you will find many analyses of the social and political dynamics behind it if you searched for them. But I think, philosophically speaking, it is something like 'false consciousness':
Likewise, many disillusioned with politics as usual seem willing to believe that Trump will improve the economy or their lives, presumably because he's so good at appealing to their fears and depicting himself as a 'victim' of 'the establishment'. They fall for it over and over. It has been dissappointing in the extreme to see it.
The other point is, Trump is purging the Government and Administration of anyone who would challenge his false claims. Would-be employees are subjected to scrutiny to see if they have any record of criticizing Trump or MAGA before being hired. He's hand-picked only people who will agree with him that the 2020 election was stolen. He's excluding independent media from the WH press pool, and so on. He's really worked at creating an 'alternative reality' in which most of the media and the news it reports can be dismissed as 'fake'. And his voters believe it.
Quoting philosch
As it happens, that is one subject where I agree with the conservatives. I think the Left's fixation with trans rights is one area where they've lost a lot of the electorate (not that it's an argument I want to pursue.)
//
Comment on a YT video about Musk:
"I cannot tell a lie" - George Washington
"I cannot tell the truth" - Donald Trump
"I cannot tell the difference" - MAGA
//
Simply based on the majority voting for someone who made his agenda known and he then obtained a majority vote. Does that mean every move made has been pre-approved by the majority by no means. Have some of the changes made been clumsy certainly, but the overall agenda and policy direction can be "factually" stated as a majority position.
One example would be male transgender athletes not allowed in women sports. 80-20% issue without question or debate. Now in taking that position a person will be labelled as a transphobic or any number of other labels. But one can stand and argue they are for equal rights for all, regardless of the gender identity and still hold a perfectly rational position to protect women in their sports based strictly on the science that tells us that men even undergoing hormone therapy have 16% greater physical ability (on average) then women. This is a factual generalization. No reason to label people who support the logical position to keep transgender males from being in women sports without that meaning they are bigoted.
Take this statement as you right it: That means 1500 people beat cops. That's just absurd. A few people may have but certainly but not 1500. I think Jan 6 was an unfortunate riot that got out of hand but was no worse than any of the other 500 or so riots the previous summer. Certainly not an insurrection as no one was even charged with that crime. Trump is on record of asking his followers to protest peacefully which was their right. The fact that some did not if unfortunate. I don't think he should have protested so much to the results but I do not believe he wanted a violent over throw of the government. I can take the middle view without making ridiculous claims. As for pardoning, Joe Biden's record on pardoning is even more inexcusable.
The way the riot was characterized by the media compared to the way the many other riots like burning down courthouses and police precincts is the key to understanding the bias present across this discussion. You see I do not think Trump is some great savior, I held my nose and voted for him as I believe in his overall policy direction. When Biden got elected I was pretty down as I could easily see he was weak and mentally incompetent. But I didn't panic. The pendulum swings back and forth and has been doing so for as long as I can remember, but referring to Musk because of an arm gesture as a Nazi or Trump as a threat to democracy because you don't like his policies are just ridiculous hyperbolic statements that are not based in fact and people who say such things have a profound misunderstanding of what the Nazi's did and I find that kind of statement needs to be challenged as the ignorant statement it is. Trump or Musk haven't killed anyone or put them in ovens. They are not responsible for 60 million deaths! The comparison is abhorrent. Nazi holocaust survivors I imagine find these proclamations quite offensive and ignorant as to the plight they faced.
Funny that you state the 60 lawsuits brought by Trump agents did not demonstrate that Joe Biden's administration was a threat to democracy but the 50 lawsuits brought by Trump opponents demonstrate he is a threat to democracy. Neither of those facts represent a threat to democracy, on the contrary they are examples of democracy in action. You will only conclude there's a threat to democracy if Trump wins those current lawsuits but if he loses them, democracy is working. There in lies the telling fallacy of your bias. Yes I'm assuming your position. Orange man bad and every single thing he does is bad whether it ends up having a good outcome or not. Every single thing. You realize how ridiculous and narrow, inflexible of a position that is to take? You have TDS so there's no real point in debating with someone who cannot accept any contrary evidence or thought to shake them from their religiously held belief.
Now let me ask you, what do you think of people destroying Tesla's and fire bombing dealerships?
I said '1500 odd felons who had among other things beaten police with fire extinguishers and flag poles.' Which is fact.
Quoting philosch
This is classic 'whataboutism'. 'What about all the other riots'? Well, the other riots were not held to disrupt the transfer of Presidential power nor did they result in the desecration of the US Capital Building. Rioters were chanting Hang Mike Pence, and assembled a mock gallows, as depicted in the photo I showed. Seven people died as a consequence of the actions of that day.
Quoting philosch
As of January 20, 2025, 1,575 people were charged in connection with the January 6 attack. The FBI has estimated that around 2,000 people took part in criminal acts at the event. The two Oath Keepers leaders were convicted of Seditious Conspiracy. Others were convicted of various felonies. It met the definition of insurrection 'a violent uprising against an authority or government'.
As Mitch McConnell said on the US Senate Floor after the event 'The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. More's the pity he didn't follow through and convict after the second impeachment, it would have put an end to all this nonsense before it took root again.
Quoting philosch
Biden left the US economy in much better shape than it is ever going to be under Trump. All the signs are that recession is imminent, unemployment is growing, and inflation rising. There is not a single reputable economist who will support the Tarrif War, with most of them warning it is going to cause profound economic disclocation.
Quoting philosch
I never compared Trump to nazism, that is a total red herring. But Trump's threats to democracy are real and documented. Just some examples from the last few weeks:
* Extensive use of so-called 'executive actions', amounting to 'rule by decree', many of which are subject to legal action, as per the previous list.
* threatening of law firms who were associated with January 6th prosecutions or investigations into Trump by banning them from Government contracts and revoking of security clearances.
* withholding and withdrawing constitutionally-approved funds for all kinds of agencies and programs in defiance of the Congressional 'power of the purse'
* firing of Department Inspectors General in defiance of the constitutional requirement for 30 days notice and adequate grounds for dismissal (also making it much harder to detect the 'fraud and waste' that Trump keeps bleating about, as that is what they are appointed to monitor)
*rounding up and illegally deporting immigrants with no hearing or opportunity for them to present a defense.
There are more examples. Trump makes no secret of his desire for absolute personal loyalty to him over the Constitution. He shows no interest in or respect for the principles of constitutional democracy.
Quoting philosch
The '60 lawsuits' (actually 62) in the first instance, were brought by Rudy Guiliani, Sidney Powell, and a cohort of other lawyers on the fallacious grounds that the Electoral College count for the 2020 election were somehow corrupted or false. Remember Guiliani's hysterics about having 'absolute proof' of electoral fraud? Every one of those cases was dismissed. Remember the ridiculous lies about Dominion Voting Systems? And the fact that Fox News paid the largest-ever settlement in legal history for propogating those lies.
The current 50-odd lawsuits against Trump's executive actions have been, by contrast, lodged by all kinds of parties, against the perceived unconstitutionality and illegal nature of some of Trump's executive actions, and they are having an effect. Musk and Trump are now saying that judges who oppose Trump's orders ought to be impeached - another example of his threat to democracy and contempt for the rule of law.
Quoting philosch
Dreadful. Absolutely reprehensible and should be punished to the maximum extent of the law. There's only one means of protest against Tesla required, and it is perfectly legal: don't buy one.
[quote=WP]President Donald Trump on Sunday declined to rule out seeking a third presidential term an unconstitutional act explicitly barred under the 22nd Amendment saying that there are methods which you could do it.
In a phone interview with NBC Newss Kristen Welker, Trump suggested that multiple plans have begun to circulate for him to run for a third term. He pointed to unspecified polling as an indicator of his popularity and claimed he had the highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.
A lot of people want me to do it, Trump said. [/quote]
Quoting jorndoe
:roll:
Did you vote for MAGA to pivot to MRGA(make Russia great again), or the annexation of Canada and Greenland? For a vindictive trade war with every other country, except Israel? For hire and fire policies where you are vetted for any critical opinions about Trump, before you are hired, or fired, or Trump looking to run for a third term? I could go on, but this is a fair summary of his policy direction.
Quoting Wayfarer
Very well said. It is independent journalism. The Guardian reports the latest news from the UK, America, and around the world, from different perspectives. There's more to it than politics. Keeping to the topic:
Quoting The Guardian
More about Musk's interests - unfortunately, it ties in with Trump.
Quoting BBC News
You are quite right. Unfortunately, given Musk's position it is difficult to keep Trump out of it.
Not at all - I stated your views amusingly coincide with your geographic distance, not that your geographic distance engenders your views or precludes you from commenting or caring.
Thanks. I try to know my own limitations.
Perhaps, if I was a member of a powerful political party I could change the system. But as a lone militant moderate, I avoid aligning with Left or Right Wing factions. World polity has always oscillated between top-down & bottom-up government, waging warfare by "other means", while a few in the moderate middle follow the philosophical Golden Mean --- content to interpret the world, without taking-up arms to change it by violent means. How well did Marx's "practical action" work out?
If you fight against a populist demagogue, you are aligning yourself against the majority of your fellow citizens. Perhaps heroic, but not a winning strategy. As I said before, I'm a curious observer of partisan politics, not a player on the field. :cool:
The famous quote "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it," attributed to Karl Marx, emphasizes the importance of practical action and social transformation over mere philosophical contemplation.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=marx+the+point+is+to+change+it
You can pretend all you want to that it's just a different perspective and you're able to distinguish between real news and slanted reporting but it's liberal trash propaganda through and through and not worth debating about any of it's opinions in a forum that's supposed to be based on real evidence and facts wear possible. As you can see from below they are fond of reporting stories without sources which I have already pointed out to Wayfarer after they used the same publication as reference. No worries I'm out of this thread. It's of no real philosophical value, it is as I have said, an echo chamber of hyperbolic nonsense.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/guardian
"The Guardian Moved from Lean Left to Left: Nov. 2024 AllSides Editorial Review
The Guardian was moved from Lean Left (-2.4) to Left (-3.5) following a Nov. 2024 AllSides Editorial Review."
[b]"Reviewers on the left, center, and right noted that there was much evidence of Left bias in The Guardian. The panel noted:
Story choice was not just leaning left, but actively demonizes American conservatives/Republicans
consistent sensational language
Analysis of President Trump cabinet picks was clearly Left; it described Tulsi Gabbard in the following slanted way, while not including links to sources to back up the claims: "Gabbard, the proposed director of national intelligence, has been accused of having links to the Kremlin while spouting pro-Russian views an allegation that could complicate her being cleared to oversee sensitive national secrets."
Middle East coverage often has anti-Israel slant
At the time of review, a new newsletter was titled, "Fighting Back: a pop-up newsletter on defending democracy under Trump"; The Guaridan is actively opposed to/biased against Trump
The Guardian's Call to Action asking for donations was clearly against the right, reading, "This is what we're up against," with photos of figures like Elon Musk and others aligned with Trump looking sinister. "From Elon Musk to the Murdochs, billionaire owners control much of the information that reaches the public. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of bad actors are spreading disinformation that threatens democracy."
"Lots of sensationalism in stories about Trump, e.g. a piece that noted a "flurry of lawsuits" and actively tried to negatively polarize the reader against Washington Post when bringing up its nonendorsement of a 2024 presidential candidate."[/b]
That's not correct, at all. Violation of human rights, when you're grop thinks it's ok, is the MO of 'leftist' thinking (i don't put you in this category, btw). Murder, when the group think it's ok, is leftist thinking. Crime, when you think it's Ok, is leftist thinking. Fraud, when the group thinks its OK is leftist thinking. Authoritarian behaviour "under the right circumstances" if leftist thinking. Censorship, when the group agrees, is leftist thinking.
These are anti-democracy. I make no further comment, other than to say your disingenuous description tells me you reject all of the above. And so, in turn, should probably be rejecting leftism.
At least on the right, these are still a violation, just a(n intensely) hypocritical one.
You said literally more than that, and it was what I pre-empted. That's ok, fella.
Please do. It's already bringing the level of discourse down. At least move it to the lounge.
That's entirely correct based on the quoted text on why the Guardian is "left" . Your straw men are irrelevant especially if you think they don't pertain to me.
Aside from that, which I understand could just be that you've not seen the above in action, which is fine, to your initial response, I don't think you're really being genuine here. That's why I called is disingenuous. "favouring human rights" could be the label for any number of things. In practice, it tends to far overstep the concept of human rights. That's an entirely different discussion, but just something to understand why I think that description is disingenuous.
Three days after the Myanmar quake, there are no U.S. teams on the ground in Myanmar, a stark illustration of how Trump has upended Americas role in disaster response.
Hours after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake devastated Myanmar on Friday, sending dangerous tremors across Southeast Asia, the American officials charged with responding to the disaster received their termination letters from Washington.
Most of the personnel who would have made up a U.S. response team, including security and sanitation experts, were already on indefinite leave. Many of the U.S. programs that would have provided lifesaving materials, including fuel for ambulances and medical kits, were shuttered weeks ago. U.S. planes and helicopters in nearby Thailand, which have been used before for disaster relief, never made it off the ground.
Americas response to the catastrophic earthquake has been crippled by the Trump administrations sweeping cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to eight current and former USAID employees who worked on Myanmar, as well as former State Department officials and leaders of international aid agencies. Three days after the disaster, American teams have yet to be deployed to the quake zone a marked contrast with other similar catastrophes, when U.S. personnel were on the ground within hours.
The Trump administration has promised $2 million in aid, saying, The United States stands with the people of Myanmar as they work to recover from the devastation. But distributing this relief will be more difficult than ever, USAID officials said, because the U.S. has severed valuable ties with local organizations and fired staff who could have restored relationships. The U.S. commitment so far has also been dwarfed by the $13.7 million pledged by China, which borders Myanmar and is one of the few remaining allies of its military junta.
The situation unfolding in Myanmar, which has been battered by years of civil war and was the biggest recipient of U.S. aid in Southeast Asia last year, is the clearest demonstration to date of how Elon Musks U.S. DOGE Service has upended the global aid system allowing Beijing and other rival powers to take the lead in providing relief.
This is what the world looks like when the U.S. is not a leadership role, said Chris Milligan, who served as USAIDs top civilian official until he retired in 2021 and was USAIDs top official in Myanmar under President Barack Obama. Other countries have mobilized, and we have not, and thats because we have shut down parts of the U.S. government that have the capability to respond.[/quote]
Very good to keep in mind. Probably something for Wayfarer, but he's also explained himself in a way that makes me far, far less bristly at it (I have made clear elsewhere, but I am not a Trump supporter in any way other than it's entertaining, and I don't take life seriously enough to be like others hereabouts when it comes to 'existential crisis').
Quoting philosch
Is what political discussions tend to be.
Ah finally a light in the wilderness, I couldn't agree more
Denial isn't an argument and the second sentence is a dumb strawman again. That you have zero grasp of what actual "leftist" thinkers have written about is your problem. Either you realise you're making dumb generalisations or you don't.
If you're not aware, you're not aware. But you can still not be an absolute idiot and respond in such a childish, ignorant way.
Everything i said is outright, 100% true. BLM riots= justified. Luigi Mangione(murder) = justified. Defrauding hte IRS (Patrisse Cullors) = justified. Abusing, assaulting and literally 'hate speech'ing your political opponents = justified. Property damage (lets just use the moment, and think Tesla) = justified.
Censorship (COVID, Biden laptop etc..)=justified.
If you disagree with all the above, its rich calling yourself leftist. Not even aware of what the label captures.
And before you do something supremely ignorant, what the Right do is utterly irrelevant to this exchange. I even noted that at least when the right do similar things, its openly hypocritical. Leftists just move the goal post and then insult you when you point it out (as you do, constantly - so maybe I was wrong).
So, yeah. If you don't know what you're talking about it's best not to talk.
Fixed it for you, which makes the statement uninteresting without any idea how to identify one from the next. Stop sharing your opinions. It's uninteresting.
Actually many people are disgusted about both sides.
[quote=CNN]Crawford and her Democratic allies also worked to turn the election into a referendum on Trump ally Elon Musk, who poured millions of his personal fortune into the race. It quickly became the most expensive judicial contest in US history.
At a victory rally in Madison Tuesday night, Crawford thanked supporters, saying their votes helped send a message to the country.
Today, Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our supreme court. And Wisconsinites stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price our courts are not for sale, she said.[/quote]
The election was seen as a litmus test for the Trump/Musk power duopoly. Wisconsin is a real bellwether state.
Where did all the bellicose MAGA rhetoric go? Assuming Trump would be logical, this is totally against what the US President wants. After all, according to the Trump, the EU was formed to screw the US.
So they want to change the leadership and ideology of Europe, hence the support for the far-right political movement in Europe. It does actually make sense if you look at it from their ideological perspective. They see themselves as the saviour of the US people, and so they want to extend the favour to Europe too if possible.
Might as well say it as it is.
Still the stagflation hasn't gripped the global economy. Still this could be fixed, but with every day the window of opportunity get's smaller.
Likely Trump will stop like a deer in headlights and think that he portrays credibility and determination by sticking with his much beloved tariffs and simply thinks that the "green chutes" of his brilliant trade policy will emerge later.
They view our goverments basically as the same as the democrats, which is only partially true. We never had the same 'woke'-agenda in most of Europe for instance. And we view them as authoritarian fascists in the same mold as World War II fascists, which is also only partially true. They are not nearly as far down that road yet.
The knee-jerk reaction is to double down to stop them at all cost and polarise even further, but I think that is precisely how these populist parties tend to become more extreme, if they feel like everybody is against them no matter what.
There's no misunderstanding. Or the misunderstanding won't be erased by talk, but only by actions.
Trump is his own reality show that where he plays the center stage, which he just loves.
What he basically can do is make a lousy deal to the US, if he looks like a winner at first. I'm not sure there's going to be Hail Mary passes.
I guess we are going to escalate then.
Once you have trade barriers, factories will sprout in the US to take care of the demand. You simply cannot turn his head on this.
Again we think that in the end we will get a result that we got in Trump's first administration, the follower to NAFTA, the USMCA. Believing the end result like that is to believe that after everything, the Hail Mary pass will give Trump (and the World, actually) a touchdown.
Navarro was also lecturing Dr. Fauci on the miraculous curative effect of hydroxychloroquine.
Measles vaccination clinics hit by funding cuts
[sup] Xavier Walton · The Hill · Apr 4, 2025[/sup]
Bulldozing without considering, clinics scrapped, health workers laid off, the heck are they doing? Seems like an RFK Jr thing, which may be coincidental. Shouldn't the government appoint someone who thinks?
Quoting Elnathan John
:D
If that's the case, I've definitely missed it being more than a small, almost fringe, group. Though it may just be that these people are not commentators.
Quoting Benkei
Not all men.
It's noteworthy that Trump has had this thing for tariffs even earlier. He was in first in the "Japan will overcome us" -camp and wanted tariffs to be implemented against the Japanese in the 1980's. This then changed to China. But otherwise, as Trump doesn't read books and isn't aware of economics, it's very likely that Navarro got involved as described.
Quoting AmadeusD
Remember the algorithms, what makes a debate. It's not those who agree.
Yet when it comes to the Trump administration (and Musk's role in it), there's a lot of criticism around even from the moderates.
I maybe either too dumb or too tired to know what you're saying here?
Yes. There wasn't much from the moderates about hte abysmal Biden era, though. I think there's an imbalance in this sense. Its more acceptable to talk shit about "right wing" concepts and people. Same as there is no issue, whatever, with publicly saying something like "What the fuck is wrong with white people?" But if you switched any other ethnicity in.. you're in hot water.
Ok. If everybody agrees on something, there isn't much discussion then, is there? But if you come with really extreme views, a lot people might comment as it's obvious that many don't share the extreme views, hence this creates discussion. Two people with totally opposing ideas creates a heated debate, not the one where they understand each others points and discuss some subtle differences.
The computer algorithms used is simply to get people hooked on to what they are following.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, there was a lot of talk especially during the times of Biden about wokeness and the woke, even here on PF. Now when the Trump administration is fighting wokeness with deleting photos of the B-29 "Enola Gay" because of the name, it's different. Talk of an overreaction.
Ah yeah I see what you're getting at. Weirdly, I get about 50/50 left/right content. Commentary seems very much skewed - But again, I don't know everything so i put this entirely to the side for now.
Quoting ssu
I think, possibly, the Biden-era mouthpieces constantly contradicting earlier policies (including Obama's) was an overreaction to Trump doing similar things to Obama (and prior liberals). I think your example is a good one in terms of "point and laugh", but not a great one in terms of consequence. I think politicians lying about their academic career is worse, for example.
The so-called "Culture War" has been a way to heat up political debate and get supporters of a party to be active. It has been used in the US for a long time. During the Bush senior era in 1990's, I remember it was a political debate about burning the US flag. The "Culture War" debate is a way to rally your supporters around one's party, when economic or other policy differences don't get people fired up. The debate around bathrooms might get the interest of those that aren't interested in foreign policy matters.
But here's the problem: When JD Vance went to the Munich Security conference and gave basically a "Culture War" speech on the absence of free speech in Europe, that wasn't at all what the attendees heard. What they heard was deep differences in security policy between the US and Europe and obviously openly hostile intervention into the domestic politics of EU countries. It would be similar if the EU would suddenly start to "support the Democrats in the US in the Constitutional Crisis that is happening in the US because of the Trump regime, which is an existential threat for democracy and the Republic in the US." How would Republicans and MAGA people react to that? Likely in the similar fashion that Germans responded to Vance's speech. They would be also first flabbergasted and immediately angry about such intervention into domestic politics.
Another problem is that the actions of the Trump administration are taken as a whole. Hence when Trump campaigned against DEI during the elections is one thing, but now the actions against DEI implemented by the Trump administration are in the same category with things like extraditing people to El Salvador and not caring about what the SCOTUS says on the issue.
The 'culture wars' are certainly not a 'tool' of any kind. They spring up out of the the tension between what people actually care about, and what politicians are doing. Its certainly cyclical, and has some hallmarks of a 'game', but that seems patently not what's happening.
People get fired up because its hte future of their country they're debating. Not sure this needs any further justification or explanation. Males in female bathrooms was always something that people got upset about until around 2015 when things got weird (take that negative or positive, doesn't matter to my point). Because more males started being in female bathrooms, for whatever reason. Doesn't need any further to understand why people care..
Talk shows, podcasters and other commentators etc. can surely debate Culture war issues, but do notice how the Culture War is played and handled by the politicians. And you already said it yourself: "tension between what people actually care about, and what politicians are doing". What politicians do or decide is inherently political. And when it is thought to be negative, it is in the interest of the other side of the political field to embrace the issue and use it. Otherwise something like Colin Kaepernik taking the knee or if corporations have DEI training would be such an issue. In fact, in Trump's second election victory not only inflation, but also Culture War issues played a big part (apart from the Dem's struggling and finally replacing Biden with Harris). As I said, it's far more easier to get the voters interested in Culture War issue than economic or foreign policy issues, which one needs a lot of information to judge (or to get angry about). But trans-athletes, burning the flag or use of toilets? Far more easier to have your own view about those things.
The politics of the Culture War is shown when you can put the issue at hand into an accusation of the opposition: "Look at what this administration is doing to X." That's where you see how these issues are used in politics.
Quoting AmadeusD
And that would not be political??? Isn't that the centerpiece of a politics?
It seems your just describing political discussion as 'across the aisle', noting it can get aggressive.. and....??
the Culture Wars such as they are branded are simply the set of issues people want to be dealt with either socially or politically. To the degree that parts of that whole apply to political discussion: yes. They do. There's nothing wrong, weird, untoward or manipulative about that. Almost all 'culture war' issues became issues because real, actual people, really, actually came into contact with those issues in their actual, real life and had actual, real feelings about that. If we want to trivialize this I can kind of understand where you're going.. otherwise, i'm kinda lost.
Can you maybe let me know what the difference is, for you?
Just look at the definition of Culture War:
Notice the role of politics in this definition above.
The world has been full of culture wars for decades, on issues like race, LGBTIQ rights, education, abortion, guns, religion, refugees, and privacy. Most of these battles have played out on Australian soil too. They're not owned by one side of politics; theyre fought by both the left and the right. These are emotional issues, often dominated by extremists on both sides, whom the media reliably spotlight to stir up the usual confected outrage.
Vietnam sparked a culture war, but we didn't use the term then. Slavery was a big one in the 19th century.
Today, it seems odd to me that something like trans rights, such a relatively small issue, can generate so much outrage and energy, while something like economic inequality, which affects umpteen millions, evokes far less passion. You can't help but wonder to what extent culture war politics are just a great way to distract us from real structural problems and get us fighting among ourselves about toilet use, while the corporations and the billionaires continue to expand their power and finances. :wink:
I totally agree.
And this is why it seems to me much more of a manufactured issue as the intent is clearly to get supporters to rally around a cause and get them voting. Especially if the economy isn't so great and there are true problems in the society, Cultural War issues might be a safe bet for the politicians. Homosexuality is a minority issue, yet being trans is even a smaller minority. Yet, as you stated, these issues evoke outrage and passion, which aren't typically the feelings from something like financial and monetary policy, which actually affects us all every day. (Perhaps with Trumpnomics and the Trade War sillyness we will really get there.)
Perhaps I would add that usually once when a political movement achieves it's actual clear goals, then the next "wave" of the movement have to go with something new, and in the end it becomes rather silly. Just think about what liberalism was fighting for at the time of Adam Smith compared to the anarcho libertarians of today or the suffragettes to the feminists of today.
I understand. A fair take. I disagree, on historical grounds, but this is not something particularly arguable. It's how I see it, rather htan some set of facts.
This seems to betray what you want that 'definition' to say. When it's not being used as a political cudgel (or similar) it refers to the conflict between cultural views. This is a decidedly social conflict, as I see it and politicians just pick up on this (knowing they aren't the right arbiter) to get less-intelligent people to vote for their buzz-word speeches. So, we see politicians the same, at least LOL. Just a reversal of directionality.
I would also, in some degree, reject that definition. It seems designed to play into a leftist "if you disagree you're a bigot" type thinking. Ironic LOL (but also probably partially bias on my part).
Wait a minute.
Isn't politics all about moral issues to what existing laws don't give us direct straight forward answers? Isn't politics about what is wrong and what is right or what is beneficial to us and to our society? Yes. we think of politicians to be these corrupt power hungry narcissists, but in reality shouldn't politicians be the arbiters of social conflicts?
Quoting AmadeusD
Lol. Well, I've voted all my life for the conservative party in my country, but I'm not surprised that Americans or Brits would see me as a leftist.
Hmm, I can see why this is the take, but I don't think so. This seems best illustrated by the illusory way politicians have us thinking they care about hte social issues. I think there's a reason "social politics" is a term.
Quoting ssu
Hahaha, not always, but yeah, largely.
Quoting ssu
No. Unsure what more to say LOL.
Quoting ssu
That wasn't at all what I was trying to say. But, fair lol. I meant to say that your quoted passage seems to be, itself, a left-leaning frame for what "culture war" amounts to. Though, i agree with anyone who thinks "culture war" is a reasonable term - but I also disagree with anyone who thinks its some media invention. One of the most naive takes I've ever heard about social life (very, very common in NZ left circles).
And anyway, it seems that "Elon Musk's unprecedented intrusion deep into the mechanics of the Federal Government", as @Wayfarer stated in the OP, is coming to an end. I think that Elon will be quietly going to withdraw from the Mar-a-Lago and the White House scene. So perhaps it should be good to look at what I first wrote in this thread three months ago.
Quoting ssu
Now a disastrous first quarter results made this clear to Musk. I gave too much credit to what DOGE could do as Musk didn't last even until the summer and the cuts have basically been meaningless as the Trump administration is spending a bit more than the Biden administration now. I presumed that DOGE could really to go for serious cuts in the expenditure (which would have made Musk even more hated). Likely now only the Democrats and liberals got offended about Musk, but Republicans didn't get to be as annoyed at him as I predicted. And for Trump, the midterms are too far off to notice that there might be use for having the Worlds richest man around (or one in the top ten). Then he might beg for Musk, but already that one election of a judge that Musk lost has shown that he cannot buy everything.
It seems that now Trump is likely to cave in his delusional ideas about tariffs saving everything when the recession hits home. Other countries just can wait and let Trump's situation get worse. That's the next step, but an issue for another thread.
I'm not sure why. That's true of any debate. Don't use your brain if you don't wnat. If you want to say anything of substance, you'll use it. A very ironic line, in the event LOL.
Quoting ssu
Possibly. I'm unsure. Usually, the media predictions are not right because they don't reflect what's actually happening. But, i abstain anyway - just saying this as its relevant.
Quoting ssu
Well see. I don't see this happening. Call me ignorant
Weren't all of these measures simply Trump lashing out at a Government that he hates, using 'waste and fraud' as a pretext? Similar to how he is having people deported on the pretext of them being 'violent criminals' even without any convictions having been recorded purely to appease the xenophobia of his base.
It seems the wind has been taken out of Musk's sails. He's said to have been having screaming matches with Scott Bessent in the West Wing and to have considerably annoyed many other cabinet members. Tesla is clearly wounded and may not ever recover (and it doesn't help that the Cybertruck is on the way to being an historic dud.) I think Musk was literally power-drunk when it all kicked of. Now for the hangover. Even so, the consequences of the DOGE chainsaw will be felt for years to come.
I think that these guys were truly sincere in their goals, yet the disdain and hate they had towards the system was clear right from the start. The strategy of "Let's just go in quick and cut as much we can do and then solve later any issues that rise up" had basically the effect of just lashing out at the government. The normal way would simply been for Elon to go through the government and then make list of things to be cut and that to be given to the Congress to chew on. But yes, as you said, power went to their heads.
Quoting Wayfarer
Things can get heated in any administration, but with the inept leadership qualities of Trump it's a sure end result. And of course this was baked in from the start as there no DOGE officially exists and Musk isn't part of the actual administration (as he obviously didn't want to set aside his wealth and companies). The de facto but not de jure status was first seen as a great advantage, but when DOGE fails to do anything but stir up a mess, it becomes easily a nuisance in the administration.
Quoting Wayfarer
Indeed he was. You could see it from his crazy attacks against various European countries (Germany, Poland, the UK).
But we shouldn't forget that the most power-drunk person has been and is still Trump himself. There is nobody around him that would saying anything against him, hence the only thing that get's him to change his views are the effects of his policies in the stock market and the economy. With Elon, it's his companies, with Trump it's the US economy and the international status of the country and it's alliances.
The net result has been the disbanding, disabling and destruction of many valuable agencies, services, careers, and departments, across many sectors of Government, affecting science, climate, education, human rights, foreign aid... the list goes on.
Here's a partial list of DOGE/MAGA stuffups, courtesy Motherjones.com:
Also, Bill Gates has come out with blistering criticisms of DOGE, saying that the richest man in the world has destroyed programs (which Gates as head of Gates Foundation knows backwards) which could lead to literally millions of lives lost. Musk has maintained a sullen silence, although some of the MAGA minions have been trying to find insalubrious rumours to spread about Gates, who has said he plans to sink his entire vast wealth into global health and economic initiatives. The contrast between the two could not be clearer, though. Bill Gates may not be a saint, but hes at least a good guy.
New Social Security Data Reveals Musk, DOGE Lied in Claims of Social Security Fraud
[sup] Natalie Alms (Elizabeth Warren) · US Senate · May 15, 2025[/sup]
DOGEs Fraud Tracker at Social Security Turns Into a Massive Self-Own
[sup] Josh Fiallo · The Daily Beast · May 16, 2025[/sup]
Shouldn't they hit the White House next?
The problem is, so much of what DOGE is doing is blatantly ideological and blatantly in service of Trump and Musk's political views, hatreds and perceptions. If DOGE really was committed to equity or efficiency or improvement it might not be so utterly egregrious. As it is, it is doing irreversible damage to many programs and agencies.
Well, working and functioning institutions are an obstacle for Trump: they are indeed bad for the White House.
Hence if Musk's DOGE went on this crazy rampage through the corridors of US power, that itself was a good thing for Trump.
LOL. oh yep.
Yet what's the credibility after the failure of DOGE to make any true impact (other than canceling USAID)? Quite laughable. At least the guy is as distracted as ever from actually running his companies, so I guess Tesla will continue to plummet.
[quote=Daily Beast (may be paywalled); https://apple.news/AQEpM1r2UTI2OMNIKqnPszA]Billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump tried to take a chainsaw to federal government spending, but it turns out they actually wasted tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.
The Department of Government Efficiency generated some $21.7 billion in waste across the federal government in the first six months of the year, according to a new report from the minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI).
The report, spearheaded by Democratic Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal, comes after a months-long investigation into the tech billionaire and his teams DOGE efforts after the president tapped the tech billionaire to lead the short-lived initiative to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and find some $2 trillion in government savings by July 2026.
However, Musk, once first buddy, departed his role as a Trump adviser in May, far short of the DOGEs goal before having a colossal public breakup with the president, as congressional Republicans backed by Trump passed legislation that is projected to further expand the deficit and add trillions to the national debt.
The massive sum of DOGE-generated waste found in the report also happens to be more than twice the $9 billion in DOGE cuts Congress codified earlier this month in the rescissions package sent over by the White House to claw back federal funds, which took an ax to public broadcasting and foreign aid.
The report found that one of the biggest examples where DOGE burned taxpayer dollars was with its Deferred Resignation Program, which was announced in late January by the Office of Personnel Management. In total, the chaotic program wasted some $14.8 billion by paying some 200,000 federal employees not to work for up to eight months.
The 55-page report also found more than $6 billion in waste from the more than 100,000 federal employees who were involuntarily separated from their government jobs but faced long periods of administrative leave. Many were paid not to work for weeks or months.
There was also some $263 million in lost interest and fees to the federal government after the Department of Energy implemented dozens of loan freezes for utility projects.
Another $155 million was wasted in time costs for employees because of Musks demand that they send a weekly accomplishments email to OMB highlighting five accomplishments. The move announced in February caused widespread confusion at agencies across the federal government when it was announced in February along with the threat from the worlds richest person that it would be taken as a resignation for those who didnt respond.
DOGE also wasted $110 million in food and medical supply aid that was left to spoil in warehouses and set to be destroyed.
Nearly $42 million was spent to relocate staff members from one agency closer to a physical office, $38 million in investments were blown on four projects at the National Institutes of Health and the IRS, and some $66 million was spent on professional staff to be underutilized for entry-level work.
This report is a searing indictment of DOGEs false claims, Blumenthal said in a statement. As my PSI investigation has shown, DOGE was clearly never about efficiency or saving the American taxpayer money.
The total waste found also included an estimated $50 million in DOGE operational costs. However, it did not include other potential ways money was spent or wasted, such as being used for legal and administrative expenses or undermining public safety.
The Connecticut senator has urged the inspectors general of some 27 government agencies to take up the investigation and conduct reviews of how DOGEs actions cost taxpayers.[/quote]
I am skeptical. I dont doubt that the way they went about making the cuts was inefficient and clumsy. I dont doubt that the billions of dollars pointed out in this article represent poor planning and implementation. What I dont know - what I have not seen described anywhere - is how much money will be saved over the upcoming years by the reductions in the number of federal employees and programs. Maybe none will be saved. Maybe costs will increase rather than decrease. I just havent seen any evidence one way or the other.
Musk later turned less loyal, it seems. :grin:
Yes, I agree on both points.
I don't really know enough about economics and specifically American economics to know how accurate what he was saying was but it sounded impressive and Pakman is a stand up guy generally isn't he?
Thanks, Ill see if I can find the commentary youre talking about.
I don't usually take an interest in current affairs much but I do like his sardonic style and find his innocent delivery of the sarcastic remarks he makes amusing of these guys he discusses.
@Wayfarer @Janus @jorndoe
I wasnt able to find the David Pakman commentary you discussed, but I did find this essay from the Brookings Institution that I thought was interesting. Its an overview of DOGE written in June. It seems fairly evenhanded, although clearly skeptical of DOGEs immediate and long-term effectiveness.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-will-we-know-if-doge-is-succeeding/
------> https://davidpakman.com/shows/?_sf_s=elon <------
Many pages of results, those are just a few example titles.
He has a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@thedavidpakmanshow. I much prefer Brian Tyler Cohen and Glenn Kirshner, although it should be acknowledged that the anti-MAGA media is feeling extremely discouraged at this time. The bad guys really are winning, or so it seems.