Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025

Parker Molloy doing her best to sound alarms: https://www.readtpa.com/p/the-media-is-missing-the-story-elon

Think about what's already happened: A billionaire with extensive business interests in China now has access to sensitive national security information. A man who publicly mocks federal workers can now monitor their emails and computers. Someone who treats government agencies like hostile takeover targets has gained control of the systems that deliver Social Security checks to elderly Americans and food assistance to hungry children.

This isn't just about destroying the administrative state — though that's certainly part of it. It's about replacing government accountability with private control. When Musk's team tells federal workers they should seek "higher productivity jobs in the private sector," as reported by Wired, they're telling on themselves. The goal isn't to make government more efficient; it's to transfer its power and resources to private hands.

Democracy requires public servants who answer to the people, not to billionaires. It needs civil servants who can't be fired on a billionaire's whim. It requires systems that distribute public resources based on law and need, not private interests. Instead, we're watching the systematic dismantling of these democratic safeguards, carried out by someone who treats the Constitution like terms of service to be rewritten at will.

> Trump also expressed interest in acquiring Ukrainian rare earth minerals

Why because they interesting

Hey, mineral collecting is serious business.

It’s all just so far beyond how bad I expected it to be. The shock hasn’t fully sunk in.

Ending OSHA being floated now too, not an executive order (yet) but Rep. Andy Biggs from Arizona introduced a bill to do so. Not even hiding that they don't just want people poor, they want them dead too.

Anything radical that involves Congressional votes to pass is aspirational rather than a serious threat. It's the breadth of preemptive unilateral executive actions, whether legal or not, that's the flashing Drudge siren.

i expect that before the term is over, the fecklessness of the democratic party (and their real lack of powers, in terms of numbers and their ability to persuade normal people that they care about their wellbeing) will create a vacuum that will be filled with citizen violence, which trump and his regime (they are fascists, start calling them what they are) will compare to jan 6, "this is the real jan 6", etc

xp - Agreed, I just hope someone is keeping track of all of these "mask off" moments of what they'd really like to accomplish.

Hey, the left also wants a day of love. Is that too much to ask?

(they are fascists, start calling them what they are)

and sorry, pet peeve, but if you're one of those pedantic people who refuse to say "fascist" because it's not playing out the way it did with mussolini, invent a new word and use that one. say SOMETHING to differentiate this what you thought was normal

(same with genocide and gaza. call it ethnic cleansing, invent a new word, just stop ignoring it)

good thing nobody should ever give a fuck what Trump and his regime say, like can we start by not paying attention to their rhetoric at least

this shit should not be surprising - trump ran on this platform, everyone in the party is in on it and wants it, white evangelicals want it, rich people want it. in the same way, you should not be shocked when trump refuses to leave office ever again. he may well die, or be forced out by someone even more evil. but he's not leaving unless he's forced out, and to act like the 2026 or 2028 elections are something normal to look forward to and that 2016 - present is some abberation is not only misguided and unhelpful but completely wrong and wrong in a dangerous direction of complacence

xp - Agreed, I just hope someone is keeping track of all of these "mask off" moments of what they'd really like to accomplish.

why? they already SAID what they wanted to do, before they regained power! the masks have been off for a very long time now

anyway, sorry self-banning for a bit, logging off etc. this shit is DISMAL, but it's not SURPRISING

I just mean that someday it might be handy to have a list of all the shit they even floated, part of Project 2025 or not.

Resistance works.

Two days after nonprofit groups sued the federal government over a stop-work order targeting programs that provide information and guidance to people facing deportation, the U.S. Justice Department reversed course and ordered that funding to the programs be restored.

The four federally funded programs educate people in immigration courts and detention centers about their rights and the complicated legal process. The Justice Department instructed the nonprofits on Jan. 22 “to stop work immediately” on the programs, citing an executive order targeting illegal immigration that President Donald Trump signed the day of his second inauguration.

A coalition of nonprofit groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday challenging the stop-work order and seeking to immediately restore access to the programs. The Justice Department rescinded its stop-work order for all four programs Sunday afternoon.

Musk did not say what legal authority he believed the White House has to shut down a federal agency without congressional approval, or how quickly the administration planned to act. He said the idea had “the full support of the president” and that he had spoken with Trump on the matter several times.

Guess what? I'm reopening it

Acknowledged, z_tbd.

Lawmaker actions and lawsuits? Bring ‘em all on.

“I’m the acting director of USAid. I’ve delegated that authority to someone, but I stay in touch with him,” the secretary of state told reporters during his trip to El Salvador.

who can it be

Are we supposed to be pro-USAID now?

Olufemi Taiwo:

seeing takes about the aid institutions and their role in imperialism. correct. If someone said "investor-owned hospitals exploit the vulnerable to benefit shareholders" I'd nod. If their followup was "and that's why I'm turning off your mom's dialysis machine" I'd...have some followup questions

https://bsky.app/profile/olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social/post/3lhbtz6ugzs2p

Like I said, not criminality — lawlessness.

Elon Musk Suggests Getting Rid Of All Regulations In Midnight Call

President Donald Trump’s “government efficiency” cheerleader Elon Musk proposed simply ignoring all federal regulations during a public call shortly after midnight Monday morning.

Musk, whose newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency” team has in recent days executed a dramatic power grab at several government agencies, called for “wholesale removal of regulations.”

The public call was hosted on his website X, formerly Twitter, and included two senators and the Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said. “Not default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in.”

“These regulations are added willy-nilly all the time. So we’ve just got to do a wholesale, spring cleaning of regulation and get the government off the backs of everyday Americans so people can get things done,” Musk said, adding later: “If the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, well, it’s not freedom. We’ve got to restore freedom.”

they're just being Über-progressive, move fast and break things brah

They are committing serious crimes on a large scale

"Laws are added willy-nilly all the time. So we've just got to do a wholesale, spring cleaning of laws and get the government off the backs of everyday American so people can get crimes done."

time to start a supplements company and market it to MAGA chuds, my pills cure ED and male pattern baldness, they're full of rare earth minerals and whatever is in the ground I dug up behind my garage

is there are regulation against shining laser pointers into the eyes of private jet pilots? That's the one we need to ditch first

"Not default there, default gone."

Who wants to tell him

Get rid of all technology, technology should be default gone, not default there. If it turns out we missed the mark and we want some technology back, we can invent it again.

Second district judge going 'yeah right' to funding freeze stuff:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276842/gov.uscourts.dcd.276842.30.0_3.pdf

I appreciate all this part of it as a 'hey over there in legislative, sorry, can't handwave yourself out of it' (defendants are the Trumpers):

In addition, Defendants’ actions appear to suffer from infirmities of a constitutional magnitude. The appropriation of the government’s resources is reserved for Congress, not the Executive Branch. And a wealth of legal authority supports this fundamental separation of powers. The legislature’s “power of the purse is the ultimate check on the . . . power of the Executive.” U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, 130 F. Supp. 3d 53, 76 (D.D.C. 2015). The Appropriations Clause of the Constitution gives Congress “exclusive power” over federal spending. U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Lab. Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1346 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting Rochester Pure Waters Dist. v. EPA, 960 F.2d 180, 185 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). Without it, “the executive would possess an unbounded power over the public purse of the nation[] and might apply all its monied resources at his pleasure.” Id. at 1347 (quoting 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1342, at 213-14 (1833)). Indeed, the Clause “was intended as a restriction upon the disbursing authority of the Executive (Branch).” Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U.S. 308, 321 (1937). Congress has exercised its plenary power to give meaning to the Appropriations Clause and “reinforce (its) control over appropriated funds.” Id. In 1982, Congress enacted the “Purpose Statute,” which requires the appropriation of federal funds in accordance with “the objects for which . . . (they) were made.” 31 U.S.C. § 1301(a). Any “reappropriation and diversion of the unexpended balance of an appropriation for a purpose other than that for which (it) originally was made” is treated “as a new appropriation.” Id. § 1301(b). Related laws expressly prohibit the Executive Branch from encroaching on Congress’s appropriations power. See id. §§ 1341, 1350.

what is this 'sovereign wealth fund' malarky? don't they know about the deficit? Idiots

I mean, it's in the best interest for these tariffs to be kicked down the road, but GOOD LORD am I already preemptively sick of the crowing about the "DEALS" he made.

it’s the Dunning-Kruger apocalypse

it’s like a bunch of 13 year olds decide to trick out their dad’s car and just unscrew parts of the engine that look dumb or ugly but have no idea what they’re for or how an engine works
“this part is weird, it looks stupid”
CLANG
“uhh thats the alternator? you need that for electricity?”
“this is a CAR not an electric vehicle NERD”
etc

i mean, but scarier & more directly affecting our lives etc

Unconfirmed reports that people's Social Security payments are not arriving.

Just great. After delaying it until the last possible moment, I got a letter in the mail today from SSA telling me that I have to start my application for Social Security

So Musk says “If the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, well, it’s not freedom. We’ve got to restore freedom.”

But in the same breath when someone on Twitter posted a list of the names of his spotty teen lackeys he replied with "this is breaking the law"

You can't have it both ways Elon you cunt. Are you pro free speech? Or pro having zero laws and regulations?

Why dont we get rid of ALL regulations so people can go buy a gun without any checks and balances and you figure out the rest you shitstain.

Two sweet old ladies stood all day in front of my federal office building today in the freezing cold holding anti-Elon signs. Cops hassled them but they werent easily intimidated. I could have wept with gratitude to them.

Trayce ilu and you know that but please (for me?) stop invoking the gun stuff

is there a historical analog for Musk's meddling in the U.S. gov't? I mean, we've had advisors who were foreign-born obviously, but they tended to hold actual cabinet posts (Weinberger, Brzeziński, Albright ) and I guess John Maynard Keynes was a kind of advisor to FDR... but Musk is like a straight-up Rasputin! (tho at least Rasputin was an actual Russian)

Kissinger

xp My husband got his, thank goodness. I was worried about it since we need it for the rent this month.

Our divisions share point site was down this morning g due to not complying with whatever EO about gender. Our ftp site that is used by the public is also down

wonder how Musk feels about all these new gender-oriented regulations?

Actually I don't really give a shit what he thinks

xxp I thought of Kissinger as well but he was primarily a foreign policy dude not involved in domestic shit

he still made a huge impression on US inter/national politics for someone who wasn't born here

absolutely, especially with China policy

Trayce ilu and you know that but please (for me?) stop invoking the gun stuff

Fair point. I'm extremely anti gun as it happens. I just find this all flabbergasting :(

So the tariffs were rolled back and Rubio said many of USAID’s programs will continue under the state department. (Which ones? Does this mean people in Africa will not be denied the medical and food assistance they’ve come to rely on?)

It seems like they are jerking us around a lot.