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

"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.

They’re doing horrible things, no doubt, but it’s not exactly clear what is really happening.

So the tariffs were rolled back

apparently this had more to do with the Dow Jones plunge than any assurances from our border neighbors

The fuck did he expect would happen to the dow jones

It’s very hard and exhausting to try to make sense of his decision making process

i submit that the issue with Elon's role is that he's an unelected fascist barging around government offices where he has no business being, issuing orders and doing untold damage to all kinds of systems and people's lives. really not sure why his foreign birth should enter into it tbh.

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

the important nuance: the car is actually a bus loaded with people and is traveling at top speed

Musk and Trump are definitely fans of Speedspeed.

It’s very hard and exhausting to try to make sense of his decision making process

You should stop trying, then. He's stupid, ignorant (of politics, history, and economics), and sliding into dementia. You could spend your time trying to figure out how to break down the correct percentages of each of those elements as factors in any one thing he does, but it all adds up to a combination of the three, so who gives a fuck?

Not going to link it because it is too annoying, but the lead story at the NYT right now is about Musk and his “blitz,” and how it is “shaking” Washington. It barely quotes any critics at all, and doesn’t even allow that there may be some legal and constitutional issues around all of this until about the 40th paragraph. I know that complaining about the New York Times is pretty much pointless, but it is still a little jaw-dropping how quiescent the coverage is.

Just read it. Idk. It described what he is doing and why it is illegal and destructivr.

You have to go deep into the story to get to this paragraph, which has almost no follow-up or quotes from the critics:

Mr. Musk’s actions have astounded and alarmed Democrats and government watchdog groups. They question if Mr. Musk is breaching federal laws that give Congress the final power to create or eliminate federal agencies and set their budgets, require public disclosure of government actions and prohibit individuals from taking actions that might benefit themselves personally.

It would be much better reporting if they bothered to actually document how and why he could be breaching specific laws. Instead it's just, "some people have questions."

susan collins supporting gabbard. idk if she has concerns tho

gabbard gabbard hey
gabbard we accept you

it’s not exactly clear what is really happening

There's a man with a doge over there

Rich people speakin their minds/
Getting so much resistance from the woke mind virus

Everybody look who's bowing down

Who let the doge out?

lol

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/americas/el-salvador-migrant-deal-marco-rubio-intl-hnk/index.html

In addition, Bukele “has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of US citizenship and legal residents,” Rubio said.

Bukele confirmed the agreement on X, saying in a post, “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”

President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department and, in the short term, dismantling it from within, according to three people briefed on its contents.

The draft order acknowledges that only Congress can shut down the department and instead directs the agency to begin to diminish itself, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal issues.

That work is underway already. The new administration has been trying to reduce the workforce by putting scores of employees on administrative leave and pressuring staff to voluntarily quit.

And roughly 20 people with Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” known as DOGE, have begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff, according to three people familiar with the situation and records obtained by The Washington Post.

At least some DOGE staffers have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, the people said, including a financial aid dataset that contains the personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program.

many xposts to raymond - i apologize for being snappy earlier today! i was feeling very agitated about....well, you know. but i'm sorry to have acted in that way

Ugh, I know someone at the Department of Education and someone at USAid, so folks just proclaiming how stupid Musk and Trump are doesn't exactly help folks at those agencies with bills to pay and families to feed. I get your points, but despite those guys flaws they are causing serious real woes.

Yeah I don't think Musk got to where he is by being a total idiot, his public proclamations notwithstanding.

I think he's just absorbed a Trumpian "All publicity is good publicity" mindset. Both of them have zero qualms about saying objectively stupid things because they know they will 1. get covered, and 2. piss off people they dislike. What else is there?

I'm trying to make some kind of analogy where the media is a railroad track, and Elon Musk is a train, and every day people are tied up and left on the tracks, and every day the locomotive shows up wrapped in a different groyper meme. There's a lot to dislike about the situation, even before you realize that the Musk meme train is filled with stormtroopers commuting to work on the Death Star.